No Exit
by WRTRD
Summary: While staying at Castle's loft after her apartment has blown up, Beckett stumbles on something…surprising. Set shortly after 2x18. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It never would have happened if he hadn't left her there alone. And if Montgomery hadn't forced her to take time off and forbidden her to return for ten days. So really, blame it on them. Especially Castle.

Kate Beckett has been staying in Rick Castle's loft for almost two weeks, ever since her apartment had blown up, taking virtually everything but her with it, courtesy of that homicidal madman Scott Dunn. She's been here alone for the last four days because Castle's mother, Martha, is on some kind of 24-karat "spiritual" retreat in New Mexico and Castle has taken his daughter, Alexis, skiing in Colorado for what is laughably known as spring vacation. Laughably because the temperature hasn't gone above freezing in weeks and it's snowing so hard at the moment that Beckett can barely see across the street. He had of course invited her to come with them to Aspen; she had of course declined. Demurred, more like it. Saw all kinds of looming disasters, none of them involving the actual skiing.

She had intended to find some semi-affordable hotel room for her enforced paid leave, and to do some serious apartment-hunting while she was there, but Castle had insisted she stay at the loft. "We're going to be away, Beckett. God knows who might try to break in, but not with you there. You're a far better deterrent than the unbelievably expensive alarm system we have."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" she'd asked, eyes flaring.

"Damn straight it is," he'd said firmly.

So, okay, he had talked her into it. The most comfortable bed of her three decades on Earth might also have played a role, as might the guest suite's (yes, suite's) shower and tub. And many other enticing things, not least his collection of DVDs and, better yet, books. He had told her to make herself at home in his office, to read anything she wanted. And that's just it: she wants almost everything there. Castle's wide-ranging appetite for food is matched by that for books.

And that is where the trouble started. With the books.

She hadn't looked at a single potential apartment, and it's because of those damn, seductive books. Nineteenth-century French, English, Russian, and American novels. Histories. Biographies of world leaders and adventurers and oddball inventors and saints. Metaphysical poets. Who knew he liked poetry? But he does. Naturally he does. It makes perfect sense to her now: she has learned more about him in 72 hours with his books than she had in a year and a half of him following her around to write one (and more to come) of his own. Not one of the books is for show. Not one has an uncracked spine. Every one of them has been read, some numerous times. Occasionally she'd found notes that he had scribbled in the margins, questions or observations.

She'd make a sandwich in his kitchen—which was stocked with enough food for the entire building—and a cup of coffee, come in and choose a short stack of books, sit on the sofa and start reading. Maybe lie down and read. Get up for another cup of coffee, look through a few more books. And then yesterday, day three of her blissfully silent confinement, she had started glancing furtively at his chair—not his armchair, which she had already tried out and given her seal of approval—but the chair behind his desk. As if looking at if were some kind of crime, or violation of his privacy, which was ridiculous since he'd told her to make herself at home here. Besides, he violated her privacy on a fairly regular basis.

There's something about that chair. It's his _chair_ chair. The one where he sits when he's writing, when he's writing about her. Not her, but her-ish. And them-ish. It's not as if she can't see something of the two of them in Nikki and Rook; she's not that deeply in denial. And this morning, with the snow coming down hard, she finally succumbs to its strange allure and sits down in it. Spins around, puts her feet on the desk. Plays with all the things on the desk, channeling Castle. It's when she leans back in it, stretches out at a certain angle, that his collection of James Bond books—the dozen novels and two collections of short stories—appears directly in her sightline. She runs her eyes over the titles, beginning with the first, _Casino Royale_ , which is on the far left because, no surprise, Castle has arranged them chronologically. That gets her thinking about gadgets. Gadgets, gizmos, all the spy toys that appeal to Castle. Does he have any? Are there things in this very room? This would be the place for them, wouldn't it? He must have. With his imagination and so much money, he must.

Suddenly she pushes the chair back, puts her feet on the floor, and whips around to look at the enormous photo behind his desk. She doesn't have Castle's self-proclaimed Spidey senses but she has something as good or better: the eye of a detective, both intuitive and trained, and patience. Lots of patience. It takes her more than an hour to find it, and another thirty minutes to work it out, but she does. The photo is concealing a panel, and what appears to be a tiny, natural crack in the top of his desk is not natural at all. When she inserts the thin blade of an antique letter opener letter in the crack and applies just the right amount of pressure, the panel moves soundlessly to reveal a room behind it. A very large room. So help her, she gasps. And then she steps in.

There must be motion sensors, because as soon as she enters recessed lights in the ceiling come on. There are no windows, but the overhead lighting is more than adequate, and there are several standing lamps and desk lamps in the space, which she figures must be at least 450 square feet. The furniture is understated but elegant. A large cabinet with shelving on either side of two doors is flush against one of the shorter walls. A closet, maybe? She pulls on the two small knobs and discovers a queen-sized Murphy bed that glides down silently at the press of a small button. She presses it again, and the bed—fitted out with sheets and a thermal blanket—returns to the upright position. She pushes the cabinet doors shut and looks around. It's a panic room, a gorgeous panic room.

There is another door in the far corner, and it opens onto a small powder room with a basket of towels under the basin and a wall-mounted cabinet stocked with soap, toilet paper, disposable razors, toothbrushes, and toiletries. Whoa, wait a minute. Most of them are obviously Alexis's (zit cream, even though the kid has perfect skin), Martha's (anti-aging serum) and his (after shave), but a couple are hers. Not hers as in they belong to her, but ones she uses. Jo Malone pear and freesia body cream? How the hell did he know about that? Noboby knows about that. Is he stalking her toiletries? This is too creepy. Oh, oh. Oh. She remembers. There was that case, had to be six months ago, a woman strangled in her bedroom and there was a jar of that cream on the table right next to her. She'd mumbled something about that being what she uses and Castle must have heard. All the times she was sure he hadn't been listening or paying any kind of attention, he must have been. Still, why did he buy it and put it in here, along with her cherry-scented shampoo? Because she's staying in the loft? It makes no sense. Unless. Unless he thinks there's some possibility that she will be there when they might need the panic room and he wants her to feel at home? It's really kind of sweet. His perfect-host status just went a little higher.

She's poked around enough, feels a little embarrassed. She looks at her watch (bless you, Castle, for saving it from the ruins of the apartment and for getting it fixed, she thinks) and is startled to see how much time has gone by. No wonder she's hungry. She turns to go; the panel is closed. Dammit. How does it open? There's no key, obviously. Must be a computer lock of some kind in here. She looks around. Nothing. No blinking light, no black box, nothing. Zilch. Maybe in the desk? There's a desk with a laptop and a couple of drawers. She's mildly anxious as she turns on the computer, slightly more anxious as she sees that it's password protected. She runs through a number of possibilities; nothing works. Castle is too savvy to use an easily-cracked password.

"Merde!" Shouting out loud relieves her stress a little. She does it again. "Merde!" She wonders what prompted her to swear in French. Ah, because she'd just been reading Sartre's _No Exit_ in his office, even though it was in English. She chuckles lightly, and then the worry returns. She's stuck in this room. Nice as it is, she's stuck in this freaking room and she's beginning to feel claustrophobic. She's going to have to swallow her pride and call Castle, confess to having been snooping around and to having been stupid enough not to realize that the door would close behind her. She'll never hear the end of it. Suck it up, Kate, she mutters, as she reaches into her back pocket for her phone.

"Merde" is not nearly strong enough now. "Fuck!" she screams. Her phone isn't in her pocket, it's in his office.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Fuck is right. She is screwed, royally, royally screwed. She's pacing, trying to breathe evenly. How many cubic feet of air are there in here? It's ventilated, right? Is she going to run out of oxygen?

Maybe she should do some yoga. Couldn't hurt, might calm her down. But why not panic? SHE'S LOCKED IN. This is a panic room. What better place to panic than a panic room? She's earned it. She's entitled. Even if this whole mess is of her own making. No, it's not, not entirely her fault. Part of the blame has to go on Castle. He _told_ her to make herself at home, and his home includes a panic room, even if he hadn't mentioned it. He practically invited her to snoop, especially in his office. Seriously, if he were alone in her apartment for four days he'd pry into every single corner, beneath every bit of furniture and scrap of rug, leave no dust bunny unturned. She'd have no secrets left to guard except the ones in her head.

Her head. That's it, she needs to use her head. What does she know about panic rooms? _Rien_. Ah, she's gone back to French. Thank you, Monsieur _No Exit_ Sartre. There has to be some way to communicate with the outside world, but what is it? The computer, obviously, but she can't use it. She casts a wide mental net on the subject and eventually hauls in one ersatz fish. Something about panic rooms being hardwired for phones. There should be a jack. She crawls around the baseboards and finds it; but since she can find no phone here, either landline or cellular, it's useless.

Despite being consumed by anxiety, she realizes that she's very hungry. She turns her attention to the tiny kitchen area, which is equipped with a small fridge, a microwave, and a coffeemaker. Oh, her salvation. Not ultimate salvation, the ultimate being getting her out of here, but the saving of her brain. Her mental faculties need sharpening, and there's no better whetstone than caffeine. She begins going through the cabinets and finds packages of nuts and dried fruit: almonds, cashews, peanuts, apricots, apples, raisins. There are at least five kinds of crackers; two varieties of peanut butter (smooth and extra chunky); tuna fish; beef jerky (Castle, please!); creamers (vanilla in there? of course); sugar; popcorn; pumpkin and sunflower seeds; canned soup (tomato, lentil, chicken vegetable); too much candy to contemplate; bottled water (sparking and natural); soda; beer; Scotch; vodka; hot chocolate, and a box of tea bags. No. This can't be it. She pulls everything off the shelves. No no no no no. There is no coffee. Not even a jar of freeze-dried instant. No coffee. There's a coffeemaker, but no coffee? Is this a panic room or hell? It's hell. Hell without sulfuric flames, but also without coffee. She'd put up with the hellfire for a good dose of caffeine.

What was she thinking? She smacks her head and smiles. The coffee is in the fridge! She yanks open the door of the snazzy little under-the-counter model and looks in, her fingers already spread wide so they can grab the bag. Except there isn't one. She gets on her knees and looks again. Yes! In the back corner!

"Come to mamma, baby," she says, latching on to the bag and pulling it towards her. Oh, but it's alarmingly light. She can feel the blood drain from her face as she opens the bag and sees about a tablespoon of ground beans. Not enough for one cup. Barely enough for her to get a hint of a buzz if she presses her noses to the bottom and inhales deeply. It's enough only to taunt her, drive her wild, prove to her the perils of being too inquisitive.

She stands up, shakes the bag in frustration, and glares in the direction of the office. "You have my body cream but no coffee, Castle? What the hell is wrong with you?" She hangs her head for a moment, then looks up. "I cannot exist on chamomile tea, thank you very much."

Think. Think. Think. What's the maximum amount of time she might have to spend in here in Coffee Deprivation Land? Martha will be away for another ten days, but Castle and Alexis will be home in six. That's less than a week without coffee. She can do that. Imagine what being pregnant will be like. If she ever is. Oh. But will they find her as soon as they get home? This place is soundproof. If she rations the food, how long can she live? What if she has to resort to beef jerky? At least there's limitless water to drink. What if it takes them six months to figure out where she is, and they find her lifeless form here? That won't happen, will it? Castle must check this place from time to time, make sure none of the food is past its sell-by date, though in the case of the jerky that's probably some time in the latter half of the century.

"You idiot!" she shouts, referring this time not to Castle but to herself. Of course he'll know where she is: he'll see her cell phone and the incriminating letter opener on his desk. Oh, thank God. She'll have to suffer humiliation, admit to being every bit as nosy as he is, but at least she'll be spared the nitrate overload of beef jerky. She decides to have dinner: crackers loaded with peanut butter; a few dried apricots; a beer; three gummy bears, and a long, lingering sniff of ground coffee.

She inventories all the food, including a few packages of frozen vegetables, and does some floor exercises. Maybe he could install a chin-up bar in here for her. She'll have to ask. What? She's been here for seven hours and she's already hallucinating? At that moment she notices a tiny smear of peanut butter on her jeans. Uh-oh. Clothes. She has no clothes except what she's wearing. She can wash out her underwear, but what about everything else? Castle is a clothes horse; he must have something in here. Probably in those drawers in the bottom of the cabinet that contains the Murphy bed. She'll check.

Before she can, something else dawns on her, and it's far worse than the clothing problem. If the cavalry (Castle) is too late in coming, she's not going to die of lack of air or nitrate poisoning. The instrument of her death will be boredom. There are no books in here. No DVDs. No music. Not even a pack of cards. How is she going to entertain herself for days on end? Not to mention nights. And to think that she'd been craving solitude, honest-to-God solitude. Be careful what you wish for blah blah blah.

Time to check those drawers, her last resort. She pulls out the first: pillows, linens, blankets for the pull-out sofa bed. The second: clothes for Martha. Good, her sartorial horizon has expanded, although she'll have to be beyond desperation before she can wear that caftan of indescribable and blinding colors. She moves to the other side of the cabinet and opens drawer number three: clothes for Alexis. There are some possibilities there, but Alexis is a lot shorter than she. There's only one drawer left. Yup: perfect stacks of Castle's clothes. There are a few pairs of jeans, half a dozen tee shirts, two sweaters, socks and boxers. At least she can help herself to some of his things, fit be damned. In fact, since it's getting close to bed time, she'll take one of the tee shirts.

It's when she picks up the pile to make her choice that she finds it, them, tucked in the back corner of the drawer beneath the tee shirts. Notebooks. Four elegant—would he have any other kind?—notebooks, and a bundle of pens. She looks around the room, apparently to establish that there's no one else there, no one who will see what she is about to do. She takes the notebooks out of the drawer, tiptoes to the armchair, turns on the reading light next to it, and settles in.

She's just about to flip open the cover of the top notebook when she swears she feels a tapping on her shoulder. It's a phantom, she tells herself. But it doesn't go away. She feels it again. It's that old devil temptation, enticer of the bored and inquisitive, both of which she is.

"Go away." She actually says that, out loud. "Get out."

She's already in so deep in the transgression of snooping, why the hell not plumb the depths? Besides, he never has to know. If it's porn or something incredibly personal, she'll stop, right away, and put the notebooks back precisely where she found them.

She opens the first one and begins reading:

"Beckett likes baseball, but she loves the Yankees. Totally loves them.

"I need to learn more than the basic rules, three outs to a inning, three strikes and you're out. What is it with the threes? And nine innings, which is three squared? She could probably tell me, but if I got a good book on it we could discuss it. I've got about four months to beat that stuff into my brain before the season starts.

"Last week she was telling the boys and me that when she goes to a game with her father, she always keeps score. I had no idea what that meant, since the Jumbotron gives you the information. And then she explained it: each position has a number. The pitcher is one, the catcher is two, the first baseman is three, etc. So if a guy hits a ground ball and the first baseman scoops it up and tags the base, you write 3 in the box on the scorecard. If the guy hits it to the shortstop who then throws it to the first basemen for the out, you write 6-3 in the box. 'You look at that one piece of paper, and in an instant you see how the whole game went. You see the pattern of it, amazing.' I bought a book yesterday called _The Joy of Keeping Score_. I get what she means now.

"She told me that she had witnessed one of the rarest things in baseball, the unassisted triple play. 'We were sitting in the upper deck, near third. If I'd turned my head, I'd have missed it Castle. It was incredible.' I wish she could have seen herself: she was incandescent when she described it. She has absolutely no idea how beautiful she is. I need to figure out how to get her to come to a game with me. Maybe I could say that my lawyer gave me a couple of great seats by the dugout or something, and it would be a shame to have them go to waste."

Her heart is racing. She knows that she should stop reading, right now. But she can't.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She returns to the top of the first page to check the date: November 30th, 2009, almost four months ago. The next entry is three days later. She skips ahead, and sees that he begins each one on a new page. Some are only a couple of sentences long, others run for pages. Sometimes he records his thoughts three days in a row; sometimes there's a week in between them. What's the most recent? Oh, just before he left for the airport for his skiing trip. The ink is barely dry. She pages back: he has written something every single day since the bombing of her apartment, since she came to stay in the loft.

"I can't do this," she says, dropping the notebook as if it were singeing her skin, shaking her arm as if to rid it of muscle memory. Her hand hasn't held that book, her fingers haven't run over the paper. She presses the heels of her hands hard against her eyes. She hasn't seen any of it. Not a word. It's all her imagination. None of this has happened. Well, she's in here, that sure as hell happened, but not those, those—things. Those notebooks. No. They're going right back in the drawer where they belong, or where they'd belong if they existed, which they don't because they're a figment of her imagination.

After gathering the quartet of imaginary objects into a neat pile, she puts it in the drawer and closes it sharply. She has to go to sleep, right now. Preferably a long, dreamless sleep from which she will emerge full of energy and scintillating ideas of how to amuse herself until her knight—until Castle gets her out. If there were a 2x4 here, she'd render herself unconscious with a mighty whack, but there isn't, nor are there any sleeping pills. The entire Castle-Rodgers family must get happily through every night without chemical assistance. Though there is wine, which might be Martha's soporific of choice.

Beckett sighs, fills a mug with water and heats it in the microwave. When it's ready, she adds a tea bag. This is what she is reduced to: chamomile tea, the bedtime favorite of little old ladies with lavender hair. It had better do the job.

Something does, because she wakes almost ten hours later, wearing nothing but Castle's _Storm Fall_ tee shirt and very snug in the remarkably comfy Murphy bed. It should be comfy: it has a $2,000 Tempur-Pedic mattress, which is about four times what she paid for whatever she has at home. Oh, but she has no home, and the mattress is toast. The trouble with sleeping for so long is that she feels exhausted, and there's no coffee to help revive her. She doesn't need reviving. She'll just lie here until she dies from terminal ennui, the only case in recorded history. Castle can make sure it's on her tombstone.

Castle. Why is Castle in charge of her epitaph? Because he would be. She covers her face to hide the blush that no one is there to witness. The notebooks. She's not looking at them again.

Funny, she thinks as she eats a bowl of Cheerios with long-life milk, she feels cold. She could really use a sweater, but she doesn't have one with her. Where might she find a sweater, one with arms long enough to fit her? Why, in drawer number four. She'll just get a pullover, that's all. Nothing else.

She opens the drawer. Right, two sweaters. She'd better try both on, see which is a better fit, and which is warmer. When she tugs at the second one it topples the pile of tee shirts. Beckett must tidy that up. Besides, a domino effect might have disturbed the notebooks, and they must be in the proper order. She'll check. Take them out, just to be sure.

A quick scan confirms what she'd thought: the topmost notebook, the only one she has opened, is about her. But it doesn't necessarily follow as the night the day that the other three are. Maybe one is his impressions of Alexis as she has grown up; maybe one is reminiscences of his own childhood as the son of an actress; maybe one is an exegesis of why he killed off Derrick Storm. Any one of those, all of those, would be interesting, something to keep her occupied and out of any more trouble than she's already in.

She chooses the one at the bottom of the stack, goes back to the Murphy bed and props herself up on some extra pillows from drawer number one. Here goes. The first page is dated April 10, 2009, almost a year ago, and just a few weeks after they met:

"She lost her mother at 19. Her mother. Not to cancer or a car accident, awful as either of those would have been, but to a murderer who has never been caught. Who has never even been adequately pursued. And then her father went to the bottom of a bottle and stayed there for five years. What kind of hell was that for her? She was a kid. A kid. Not a whole lot older than Alexis.

"I still can't believe that she told me. I'm stunned that she told me, but I'm horrified that then she brushed off something that clearly haunts and drives her. She said, "So, I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now, Castle." I guess I deserved that. I've been kind of an asshole a lot of the time, needling her, and she has as little knowledge of my protective devices as I have of hers. Except now I do know some of hers, and they're heartbreaking.

"It's only a month since I met her, and she's under my skin. Really under, like no one I've ever met. I'm embarrassed at the way I behaved after that first case. I wanted to fuck her brains out. And what would have happened if I had? If she had? I'd never have known her or known her backstory, a backstory that I will never, ever use for Nikki. I need a way and a place to separate the things about Beckett that I can use for Nikki, and the things I know and feel about Beckett that no one but me has any business reading. No one but me and Beckett. I wish. If that ever happens. If I write it down here, I can compartmentalize. Keep the two Becketts apart. A month isn't long, but it's long enough for me to know that I'm falling hard for the Beckett whom I can write about only here. The real Beckett, not just the kickass detective."

She closes her eyes. This must be what the sailors felt like as the Sirens lured them to a rocky death. She could have stopped reading after the first sentence. "She lost her mother at 19." Who else would he be writing about, especially then? She should have stopped and now she can't. It's as if she's been drugged. Should she read straight through, or just choose passages at random? Maybe if she reads just a few she'll get the drug, whatever it is, out of her system. Some kind of purge.

The four notebooks are lying on the bed, spread out like a fan. She takes one and opens it partway through. He wrote this passage in late September, not long after he came back from his summer-long vacation from the precinct. She had thought that she never wanted to see him again because he had done what she had asked him not to—looked in to her mother's case—and she was furious. But things changed. He changed. She did want to see him. Does want to. She wishes that he'd walk through that goddamn secret door right now, and not because she wants to get out of here. Maybe the two of them could stay in here for a while. Just the two of them.

She starts to read again:

"I wonder when Beckett got interested in Russian literature? The Russian accent she used when she got me out of that gambling place the other night is the sexiest thing I've ever heard. She could read me a recipe for steel-cut oatmeal in that voice and I'd have to leave the room.

"The boys told me that when they were in the van she mentioned that she learned Russian when she spent a semester in Kiev before her junior year in college. That would have been after her mother died. Did she just want to get away from home? To a place that was as different as anything she had ever known? I know she reads Turgenev and Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and now I'm pretty sure she reads them in the original language. I want to talk about those books with her, _War and Peace_ , _Crime and Punishment._ I want her to tell me everything that was lost in translation, have her explain it to me. I want her to tell me what it's like to be able to read them in the writers' voices, all that richness, rather than the distilled English version.

"Especially if she does it in that Russian accent."

She sits up and looks at her watch. It's close to noon. She wouldn't care if it were six in the morning, she's having a drink. Vodka would be appropriate, but she wants a Scotch. Castle has the best single malt around, and it's right on the counter. She gets out of bed and pads over to get it, sliding a little in his socks, which she's wearing because they're warmer than hers. She pours herself a drink, lets the first sip warm her up. She misses Castle. Does he miss her? He must. He's been texting her at least ten times a day from Colorado. Oh. Wow. Why hadn't she thought of this before? He must be wondering why she's not responding. He'll worry, must already be worried. Who's he going to call?

She takes the drink back to bed, fluffs up the pillows, gets under the covers, and gives the matter some serious thought. He might be looking for her. He might be frantic. What if he bursts in here right now and sees her with the notebooks? She has to return them to the drawer and figure out how to talk to him later. She flips back the blanket, which hits the rim of her glass, and she looks on in horror as the ten-dollar-an-ounce Scotch splashes all over the open notebook.

"дерьмо!" She says it again, this time even louder. "дерьмо!" The Russian word is so much more expressive than its English counterpart: shit.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Why does Castle have to buy cashmere sweaters? Not just regular cashmere, but Italian cashmere spun from the fleece of baby goats in Inner Mongolia? Why couldn't he have crappy old cotton hoodies in the stupid drawer, instead? One of those would have been perfect for soaking up the Scotch. She would have been content, perfectly happy, to wear a misshapen sweatshirt rather than the world's softest cashmere sweater which she has had to shove half way up her chest, safely away from the Scotch. But here she is, stuck on the bed, hunched over the notebook, stretching the tee shirt away from her stomach and pressing it lightly to the page.

After a few minutes she gingerly lifts the hem of the shirt to survey the damage. Hmmm, not bad. Not bad at all. The paper is still damp, but not sopping, and the ink is only slightly smeared. Maybe when it's dry the booze will have left only a faint stain. If she puts something heavy on the notebook overnight the paper might not even be too wrinkled. And then she'll put it back and he probably won't even look at it again because the notebook is full. Why would he even want to read it, right? Or if he does and notices that the paper is slightly puckered, he'll just figure that he must have spilled something and forgotten it.

That's it. Absolutely. She feels better already. Almost a hundred percent calm. She gets off the bed, plucks a dark blue towel from the powder room basket and rests the notebook on it. There, it's well on the road to recovery. With that taken care of, she peels off the _Storm Fall_ shirt, washes it out and hangs it to dry on a towel bar. Now she just has to get a dry tee from the drawer and she can apply herself to something else. Anything else.

She takes the top one from the stack and unfolds it. Oh, no. Ix-nay. Not a chance. She is not wearing his WORLD'S COOLEST DAD shirt. That's too creepy. He is not her, her _dad_. She shudders, refolds the tee and puts it back on the stack. What's the next one? Oh, good, it's something familiar: an NYPD one. That's perfect. She'll feel right at home. It's only after she has pulled it over her head and all the way down to her hips that she thinks it might be a little too familiar. Hang on, Castle doesn't even own an NYPD shirt. She yanks it back over head and looks inside, right below the neckband. There it is, written in small letters with a Sharpie: K. BECKETT. Son of a bitch, he stole her shirt! Right out of her locker. Oh, she's going to get him for this. They're going to have a little chat about property rights. Just for that, she's going to take something of his. Huh, okay, next shirt: nice, _Creature from the Black Lagoon_. That'll do just fine, especially since it has obviously been worn a lot and is nice and soft. Not as soft as the sweater, which by the way she can now put on again, and does.

It's the middle of the afternoon. She's hungry. The _Black Lagoon_ tee makes her want a movie-time nosh, so she heads for the cabinet. There it is, right where she had stashed it yesterday, although it seems like a month ago: Scooby Snacks. Leave it to Castle to have these. She opens the box and takes out a handful. Yum, yum, yummy, vanilla. The trouble is, that makes her miss her coffee even more than she was already missing it. She tries to remember the seven warning signs, or whatever they are, of caffeine withdrawal. One is sleepiness: check. One is anxiety: another check. Maybe if she takes a nap, her anxiety will lessen. She's going back to bed, taking the Scooby Snacks with her. Five minutes later, she's out cold.

Five minutes later in his mountain-view suite in Aspen, Castle is exhibiting anxiety levels far higher than Beckett's. Alexis has gone out on the slopes with her friends; he's staying in on the pretext of having a little writing to do. What he really has to do is find Beckett. He has sent countless photos and two dozen texts designed to amuse or (occasionally) irritate her. He has left her at least ten messages, all of which have gone directly to voicemail. In the last three he dropped all pretense and told her he was worried about her. Please call or text, anything to let him know that she's all right. But she hasn't.

Maybe the doorman knows something. He calls.

"Eduardo? Hi, it's Rick Castle."

"Hey, Mr. Castle! How's the skiing going?"

"Good, fine, thanks. Er, Eduardo, have you seen Detective Beckett?"

"No, sir, not since, let's see, day before yesterday?"

"What about the other doormen?"

"I don't know. You worried, Mr. Castle? Want me to ask them?"

"No, no, that's not necessary." It sure the hell is necessary, but he's not going to admit that. Not yet. "I've tried the landline and her cell, but there hasn't been any answer. I'm afraid maybe she's sick, had a fall. I hate to ask this, but would you be able to go up there and check?"

"Sure. I just have to get Tommy to take over the desk. I'll call you right back, okay?"

"Thank you. I really appreciate that. I wouldn't ask, but, um."

"Don't mention it. I'll call you in a few minutes, Mr. Castle."

There must be something wrong with his phone. No calls. The clock indicates that he hung up nine minutes ago, which is ridiculous because he's been waiting at least an hour. Probably an hour and a half. He needs to get a new phone.

It rings. "Eduardo? Is everything okay?"

"Sorry, Mr. Castle. She's not there. I called out, took the liberty of checking all the rooms, even upstairs. No one's home. Some lights are on, that's all."

"Thanks so much, Eduardo. No problem. She probably just turned her phone off when she went out. Maybe apartment hunting. See you in a few days."

"Sure. Would you like me to let you know when I do see her?"

Is he sounding needy? Desperate? He doesn't care, but he does try to sound casual. His usual Mr. Smooth self. "That would be great. Just if, you know, you think of it. Thanks again."

He ends the call and bends over, trying to catch his breath. She would sooner walk through the precinct stark naked than go out without her phone. Or turn it off, even if she's on so-called vacation. If he didn't know that Scott Dunn is locked up, he'd be worried that he'd come after her. Still, something is wrong. She's not mad at him, he's sure of it, so she's not avoiding him. They've been getting along really, really well. Really, really, really. Enough to make him—.

He could call Lanie. No, that's no good. He needs help, real help. Beckett might need real help. He'll call the boys.

"Hey, Ryan?"

"Hi, Castle! Zup? Break any bones showing off out there?"

"Im entirely intact, thanks. Listen, Ryan. I'm worried about Beckett."

"Beckett? Isn't she at your place, leading the luxurious life?"

"That's what I thought. You haven't talked to her?"

"Nope, not in a couple of days. Now that you mention it, that's weird, since she's been checking in every few hours during shift. In case we're falling apart without her. Huh."

"I need you to track her phone."

"What?"

"Her phone, Ryan. I'm not kidding. She hasn't answered a call or a text, nothing, in thirty-six hours. Everything goes to voicemail. I had the doorman check the loft, and he says she's not there. But he also said there are lights on and she never goes out without turning them off. You know her, Ms. Save a Watt. So can you do it, please?"

"You two have a fight?"

"What? No! We're getting along great. No fights, I swear."

"Okay, Castle. But we never had this conversation, right?"

"Right. Thanks, man. You'll call me, when you find out? You'll call?"

"Yeah, I'll call."

He didn't know that it was possible to be even more worried about her than he had been two weeks ago, when he was standing on the sidewalk and saw the windows of her apartment blow out from the force of the bomb. And he had run up the stairs, kicked her door down and found her in the tub, naked. He had seen her br—. God, how can he even be thinking of that now?

He's more worried about her now because she has been under his roof for the last two weeks. Best two weeks of his life. Two weeks ago he didn't know that she liked to walk around in purple striped fuzzy socks. Two weeks ago he didn't know that she sneezed when she read the paper in the morning and ate peanut butter out of the jar before she went upstairs to bed. Two weeks ago he didn't know that she hummed when she washed dishes. Two weeks ago he didn't know that he could be this much in love with anyone.

Why the hell hasn't Ryan called? Oh, thank God. He grabs the phone. "Ryan, where is she?"

"At your place."

"What?"

"She's at your place, Castle. At least, her phone is."

"You gotta be kidding."

"Not kidding. GPS doesn't lie. She must have gone out without her phone, unbelievable as that may sound."

"Okay. Okay, thanks, Ryan. I'm really sorry to have bothered you."

"No worries. And don't worry."

"Right. Not worrying. Thanks again."

Not worrying? Okay, he's not worrying—because now he's beyond worry, way beyond. He's frantic. He has to go home.

Two hours later, everything is set. Alexis is more than happy to stay on without him since her friend Tally and her parents are here in the same hotel and said they'd be delighted to have his daughter with them for the next few days. They'll fly back together. He told Alexis that something had come up with his new book contract and a huge tour that required him to be in New York, and that seemed to satisfy her.

Two hours after that, he's looking down at the mountains from 36,000 feet, wondering how he'll keep from losing his mind on the trip home.

While Castle is fretting away somewhere over Omaha, or maybe Des Moines, Beckett is fretting away in the room that she has been occupying for two days and a night, with another night rapidly approaching. She had found a pair of scissors and some plain white paper earlier, and made herself a pack of cards. Now she's playing solitaire, but it's proving tricky as the flimsy little cards keep sticking together. Still, it's better than reading the notebooks.

She looks at the cards. Well, no, solitaire is not better than reading the notebooks. What if she didn't read all of them, but just a few more entries? How bad could that be? She wouldn't have food or drink anywhere near them. He would ever know. She could just read, oh, the last week's worth. And she'd been in the loft all that week, so what could they possibly tell her that she didn't already know?

Oh, who is she kidding? She's sitting here in Castle's secret room, wearing Castle's clothes—including his boxers, since her underwear is now drying alongside his tee shirt—reading Castle's private thoughts. She has no coffee. She can't kid herself anymore.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

One notebook is still drying out, but since she likes things to be tidy she returns two of the others to the drawer, which has the benefit of putting additional temptation at a bit of a remove. The notebook in her hand is already temptation enough. Temptation too much, truth be told. And it's time for some truth-telling, she thinks with a wince.

She's wincing also because she feels a headache coming on. Another side effect of caffeine deprivation, she remembers now. She'll just wash her face, brush her teeth, get into bed, and hope that the reading will be soothing.

She plumps up the pillows and flips through the notebook. Soothing? Is she crazy? This is going to be something else entirely, though she's not quite sure what and she's trying not to think about it. Just let it happen. Hey, that'll be a first. She decides to start with the most recent entry, the one he wrote right before he left for Colorado. She can maybe move backwards from there. Just a few, that's it. Really.

"I can't believe that I'm not going to see Beckett for ten days. Thinking about it is physically painful. I wonder if I can come up with a credible excuse to Skype with her, so that I can at least sort of see her? Christ, I'm a writer, of course I can.

"Being with her 24/7 is a total oxymoron, thrilling pain, delicious torture. She spends maybe 8 of every 24 hours upstairs in her bed, while I'm downstairs in mine, fantasizing that she's with me. I feel like a 13-year-old with a perpetual hard-on except when I was 13 my fantasies were limited by inexperience and now they're not. Her skin! When she passed me a spoon yesterday while we were making pasta sauce, and her arm brushed over mine, I thought I'd pass out. I keep remembering what she said to me after our first case. 'You have no idea.' Maybe I don't. Or I maybe I do.

"Every day I'm desperate to find out, but not just about the sex. There must be a way to let her know without spooking her, or making her so skittish that she can't be around me even at the precinct. I'll work on it while I'm away, figure something out. She's bound to find an apartment soon, maybe even while Alexis and I are in Aspen, and I don't know if I can bear her moving out. I can't. I have to tell her.

"It's mortifying to acknowledge this late in my life that I've never wanted to know everything about another person, absolutely everything. Beckett is the most interesting person I've ever met, with the most dazzlingly analytical mind I've ever encountered. She hides it a lot of the time, as if she doesn't want people to know. She's very quiet about it, doesn't show anyone how she gets from A to B, B to C, C to D. They mostly just see the end result and don't have to consider the route she took, although it's pretty fucking hard to miss if you're paying attention, which I am. She may not think so, but I am. I want to be inside her brain, explore it, tickle it, ask her limitless questions, every bit as much as I want to be inside her body.

"Damn, the car service is here."

Her face is like fire and she's breathing as hard as if she'd run up fifteen flights of stairs. This is what he thinks? Believes? She closes the notebook, presses it to her chest for a moment, and then gets up. As calmly as she can, she opens the drawer, buries the notebook underneath the other two, and shuts the drawer again.

Everything has to be buried in a drawer right now. A box. She has to keep everything in a box until she's ready to deal with what she knows. That Castle is in love with her, and she, with him. Good thing he's not here. Good thing she has a few more days to get herself together. She'll just go to sleep now. Go to sleep, even with this headache. Even though she is unaccountably in tears. It's after midnight, and she'll will herself to sleep.

Two of the many advantages of flying first class are that you're first off the plane and first to collect your bags. Castle had rented skis in Aspen, rather than traveling with his own, which shortens his waiting time at the luggage carousel. His bag arrives almost immediately, and the driver is there, too, waiting for him. On the short walk to the car Castle is stunned by how cold it is, much colder than in the Rockies, with a wind that manages to penetrate his thick winter coat. It's 1:00 a.m., so the ride into Manhattan is fast, but not fast enough. If he could tear the door off to get out of the car more quickly, he would, but he still manages to thank the driver, get his bag, greet the doorman, and be in the loft in less than two minutes.

Some lights are on, as Eduardo had told him—the kitchen, the living room, his office. He drops his bag and runs up the stairs to Beckett's room. The door is open, and he flicks on the overhead light. Her things, such as they are, are still there. Her bag. A sweater on a chair. The book she's been reading, lying on the nightstand. The bed neatly made. The bathroom is equally uncluttered and unoccupied. He touches the towels and washcloth: all dry. Something must be missing or out of place. Anything. Some clue. Oh, her gun. Her gun. Why hadn't he thought of that first thing? He runs down the stairs, three at a time, and races to the safe in his office. His hands are shaking so badly that he can barely work the combination, and it takes a couple of tries before he gets the door open. It's there, the gun is nestled there. Thank God, thank God, thank God. If the gun is there, she must be here. But where? Where the hell is she?

He straightens up and looks slowly around the office, taking in every detail. When his eyes reach the desk, he jumps. There they are: her phone, his letter opener, right next to the tiny crack in the wood. Holy Jesus, she found the room. She's in _the room_. Part of his brain tells him to stop and think before going in, stop to consider what this means, but the rest of his brain ignores the caution. He can't wait. She's stuck in there and he hasn't seen her in days. He does take a moment to consider that he might scare the bejeezus out of her, so he'll try to be quiet. He slips off his shoes, activates the door opener, and tiptoes inside.

The bathroom door is ajar and the light over the basin on, making it just bright enough for him to see her in the Murphy bed, sound asleep. Her hair is tousled and she has kicked off half the covers. He steps a little closer and his heart leaps. She's in his clothes. Nothing but his. There's the tee shirt—he isn't sure from where he's standing, but he thinks it's the _Creature from the Black Lagoon_ one. And his boxers. God almighty, she's wearing his underwear. And socks. At least one sock. Only one (endless) leg is uncovered, but that's definitely his sock on her foot. She must have been here for, what, 48 hours? Something like that? And didn't have her phone. She must have gone nuts, though she looks very peaceful.

If she had any inkling of how long he stood there staring at him, she'd shoot him. Good thing the gun is in the safe. He's so relieved that she's safe in here that he almost weeps with relief. He has to wake her up. What's the best way? Maybe a cough, or clearing his throat. He tries it: she makes a snorfeling sound and moves a little, which hikes the shirt part way up her rib cage and all but brings him to his knees. She's still asleep. "Beckett?" he says quietly. Nothing. "Beckett?"

She opens her eyes and sits up, but looks very bleary. "Castle?"

"Hi."

"Did you bring me coffee?"

"What?"

She has clamped her hands right next to her ears. "Where's my coffee? You always bring me coffee. My head is about to explode."

"You want coffee now?" He looks at his watch. "It's almost two in the morning." In that instant he remembers: he had almost finished the coffee in here last week and hadn't replaced it. She must be almost wild, but she doesn't really seem to be awake yet. No caffeine will do that to a person. "Why don't we go in the kitchen and I'll make a pot, okay?"

"Yeah, good." She throws back the covers and stands up. "Holy shit! Castle! It's you! No, you're in Aspen. Wait. You're here?" She suddenly notices her bare legs, and reaches down to pull the thermal blanket around her. He shouldn't see her in his boxers. Maybe he didn't, it's pretty dark in here. "Uh." She wraps the blanket a little tighter. "So, this is your panic room, huh?"

"Panic room? I don't have a panic room. This is my secret lair."

"Oh, okay." She's awake now. He's here, very much here. She put the notebooks away. She's safe. "So you're home now? Sorry. I'm sorry." She runs a hand through her hair. "Could we have that coffee?"

She's wearing his boxers and he has to force himself to look at her face. "Sure. Let's go have some coffee." He waves his arm vaguely at the door. "After you, Beckett."

She's trying to look dignified, which is tough when you're dragging a bright red blanket and wearing a monster movie tee shirt. As soon as they're out of his office and into the living room she says, "I'm just going to run upstairs. Get my, you know, robe."

"Good idea." Good idea? Could that be any lamer? "I'll start the coffee." He's firing up the machine when it hits him: if she's wearing his clothes she's been in that drawer. With the notebooks. He'd put them all the way under everything, in the back corner, so she probably hasn't found them. Has she? She'd said her head was going to explode? His is three-quarters of the way to detonation. He looks upstairs, sees that her door is shut, and runs back to _the room_. He turns on a light, yanks open the drawer and lifts out the remaining tee shirts. They're there, the notebooks are still there. He's safe. He'll just take them out and move them to his own room. When he picks them up, something feels off. He looks. Three. There are only three. He looks again. One's missing. He knows there were four in here when he left for Colorado. He checks them and finds that the one he wrote in last is here, but one of the others isn't. Where is it? The bathroom light is on. Could he have left it there? Not possible. Still, worth a look, so he strides over and looks in. No. Yes. No. There it is, one page a little blotchy, his notebook wide open and resting on top of a dark blue towel.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He came back he must have come back for her and now he's 25 feet away making her coffee and she can smell it already and she has to get his clothes off and put on her own how about this shirt no it shows cleavage how about this turtleneck yes and leggings and her robe on top and her socks not his and nothing should be showing except her face there's no way to hide her face if only she had a burqa but she'll brush her hair and look casual even though she still has to confess she went in the room oh God but he must have jet lag if he would just go to bed because he sleeps like the dead so he wouldn't hear anything if she went back to the not-panic room and she'd get the notebook from the towel it must be dry by now and put it in the drawer with the others and he wouldn't know that she'd read them.

Beckett does a few series of deep, calming breaths and goes into the bathroom to check herself in the mirror. Not bad. She looks quite normal. Normal for a person who has to confess to a B&E, a person who is an NYPD Detective and should know better. She walks through the bedroom, opens the door and moves silently to the top of the stairs. He's not in the kitchen? Where is he? What if he's gone back to that room? No, no, no. She'll go sit on her bed until she hears some noise.

The coffee must be done she'll smell it and come down and he won't be there and she'll look for him and find him holding the notebook and then what the hell will happen she'll run out into the street in her robe she must have put on her robe by now and it's way below freezing and where will she go he didn't even give her her phone back and she'll try to find a taxi to take her to where maybe Lanie's but the driver would think she's crazy in a robe and probably socks no shoes and wouldn't pick her up so he should just leave the notebooks here and come back when she's asleep and put them in his closet until he's ready to discuss it if she hasn't already gone and he's lost his chance forever.

Castle takes a few breaths, runs his fingers through his hair, and returns to the kitchen. The coffee is ready. He looks up and finds that her door is open. Did she already come down and go back? He can't put this off any longer. He squares his slumping shoulders and creeps to the bottom of the stairs.

"Beckett? Your coffee awaits." Oh, so cheesy. He never says that. Why hadn't he just said, "Coffee!" Or maybe "Coffee's ready." But no, he said "awaits." She'll know something's wrong.

She stands up. Face the music, Kate, she tells herself. Go apologize to him until you run out of words. Maybe he'll get tired of hearing it and go to bed. She squares her shoulders and goes down.

The mugs, with steam rising, are sitting on the kitchen island. "Hi, Castle," she says straight away. "Thanks for this, you must be exhausted. You know, long flight. And everything." She reaches for her mug just as he reaches for his, and their hands collide softly. They both pull back. "Sorry, oh, Castle, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry, please, ladies first." He looks worried as he steps aside so that she can get her coffee without any chance of their making contact. He watches her hand move, sees her long fingers curl around the handle, relives the sensory memory of her skin running over his just the other day, in this very place, when they made that pasta sauce.

"Castle, I'm really sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. You must be furious, and here you are making me coffee."

"Furious?"

He actually appears baffled. How can he be baffled? "I broke into your room. Your, I'm sorry, what did you call it? Not your panic room?"

"My secret lair."

"Right, lair. Secret. I have to, can I explain how it happened?"

"Sure."

"Why aren't you mad?"

He answers her question with an unrelated question. "Do you think we should sit down? In the living room?"

She nods so vigorously that if she'd really been wearing a burqa it would have fallen off. "Good idea, yes, to sit down." Good idea because it buys her a little time. She'd been in that godforsaken room for almost two full days, with nothing to do. Well, nothing to do but read his notebooks. Why hadn't she used at least a couple of minutes to decide how to apologize to him? Now she's winging it and she'll sound so desperate. At least it will be the truth: she is desperate. She chooses an armchair that faces the sofa, which is where he's heading.

"I know you told me to feel at home, especially in your office, but I way overstepped. It's just, I was sitting in your chair because that's where you write about Nikki and Rook—"

He's flabbergasted. "You wanted to sit where I write about Nikki and Rook?"

Not what she'd meant to say. Not at all. That's what comes of insufficient preparation. Of no preparation. She can feel her face getting red, and wishes again for the burqa of her dreams. "Well, I sat there and I was kind of twirling around in it, it's a really comfortable chair, did you know that?"

"Yes. Yes, I did. Part of the reason I chose it." He's still flabbergasted.

"Anyway, then I stopped and I leaned back and right then I noticed your James Bond books. Ian Fleming books, I mean, which of course you have in perfect order, I noticed that especially." She stops for a sip of coffee, followed by two gulps. "That got me remembering all those cool gadgets Bond has and how you really, really love that stuff, gadgets, and I thought I bet you have some of your own right here like, I don't know, a trap door with a chute to the parking garage or something."

He brightens up. "Hey, that's a good one, Beckett. Never thought of that."

Oh, if he could please not say anything 'til she finishes, that would be so much better. She has to get this done. "Right. Well, I kind of looked around, I wasn't snooping, but you know just cast a glance around the room and then I got the idea about a secret door and the letter opener caught my eye and then the little crack and presto there it was."

"Presto?"

"Yeah. Presto, the door opened."

He leans forward, puts his elbows on his thighs, and tents his fingers over his nose. He's quiet for a moment, and she's leery of breaking the silence. He sits up straight, sighs and stares across the room. She's trying to remind herself that he loves her, she knows he does, but he must hate her so much right now that he can't look at her.

"You're saying that in what, just a few minutes, minutes in which you didn't really _snoop_ , you not only hit on the notion of a secret room but understood how to get access to it and then did? Walked right in, forgetting—because you'd been applying all your thought to opening a door you couldn't see—that your phone was on my desk? And then, I'm guessing, suddenly found yourself on the other side with no way to get out?"

"Pretty much." She's terrified that she's going to throw up on the robe that she'd bought at Macy's last week on sale, or worse, on his carpet. "When you summarize it like that, it does sound, uh, improbable. I was snooping, Castle, I was. I'm sorry. And it's so much worse because I accuse you of snooping on me."

"I do snoop on you, Beckett."

"What?"

"It's true. You're right. I do snoop on you. I have overstepped way too often. I've never been in your apartment, expect that one time two weeks ago when I rescued you from the tub. But I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, even though I would look horrible in stilettos and don't know why you haven't crippled yourself by wearing them so much." He looks sideways at her. "I should be furious at you. If you were anyone else, I would be. But I'm always trying to get inside your brain for Nikki, so I guess you have every right to get inside mine for once. And you did."

It's his turn to stop for some coffee. She watches as he looks down at the floor and back up again, but not at her. It's almost as though he's confessing, when the confession should be all hers.

"Extenuating circumstances." He stops again. "You lost your home. And even though I hope you're happy here, that we've been able to make you comfortable here, I know it's not your home. You lost everything in that explosion, that fire. I can't imagine how I'd feel if that happened to me. If I were staying in your apartment after I'd lost mine, and I was alone there for days? You know me, Beckett. I'd have been looking for a secret room, too. Probably would have taken me a lot longer to find it than it took you, though." He turns and looks levelly at her.

She considers before she replies. "An hour and forty minutes."

His jaw truly drops. Drops wide open. "That's all? Are you kidding me?"

"An hour and ten to figure out that it was there and half an hour to figure out the letter opener part."

"You're a freaking genius, Beckett."

"No, just a freaking detective."

He smiles, and then he's serious. He looks hard at her, hard but gently, for a long time. Finally he says, "There's something you're not asking me, Beckett."

Shit, shit. What is she supposed to be asking? Is this wonderful, peaceful, forgiving moment ending? She hasn't a clue what to say.

"I don't know what that is, Castle."

"Really?"

Yes, really. Really, really, really. She's shaking so badly now she can't believe that he hasn't commented on it. "I don't know, Castle."

"Why I came back. You haven't asked why I came back." There's another heavy silence. "Four days ahead of schedule. Without Alexis."

She pick at a thread on her bathrobe sash. "Oh. Right."

"You didn't wonder?"

"Uh, you took me by surprise. You know, woke me up. I wasn't expecting you."

"I wasn't expecting you, either. Especially in my clothes." He wants to smack himself. Why in God's name had he said that? Now she'll be embarrassed. It slipped out because the vision is burned in his brain, and now she's here, wide awake, covered up neck to toe, in her own clothes.

Her hand moves of its own volition and covers her mouth. She moves it back to her lap. "I'm sorry. I had to wash out my clothes and I thought there might be something there I could wear and I found your tee shirt. Thank you. I hope you don't mind. I'll wash it."

He's about to ask her about the boxers and socks, but catches himself in time. "No problem, Beckett. But you must be wondering now, aren't you? Why I came back early?"

Confession. Truth. Tell the truth, tough and humiliating as it is. "Okay. I didn't wonder. I hoped. I mean, before you were texting me and sending me all those pictures and I did, you know, hope maybe when I wasn't replying that you might worry. That something happened."

"I did worry." Time for him to tell the truth, too. Not all of it, but some. "I called Eduardo and asked if he'd seen you. When he said no I asked if he could check here, that maybe you'd had a fall and needed help. He did, but said you weren't here."

"Then why did you come back? Maybe I went to visit a friend."

"You wouldn't stop answering the phone. You weren't mad at me. And the lights were on. I knew you'd never go out and leave them on. So I left Alexis in the good company of Tally and her parents and I flew home. When I got here the rest was easy to figure it out."

"You're a pretty freaking good detective, too, Castle."

"Oh." He reaches into his pocket. "Here. Your phone."

She gets halfway up from her chair and takes it from his outstretched hand. "Thank you." There's another painful silence. "Um, listen, Castle? You've been so nice, and really understanding. More than you should be. Thanks for not throwing me out into the cold or making me even more embarrassed than I already am, if that's possible. Tomorrow I'll." This is harder than she thought. "Tomorrow I'll move to a hotel until I find a place of my own. I can never replay your hospitality, you and Martha and Alexis."

She's moving out? No, he has to find a way to stop her. "Why don't we talk about it in the morning, when we've both had some decent sleep. Silly for you to spend all that money. We don't want you to go." He stands up and takes the two mugs. "What do you say? Sleep on it? I'll make you a good breakfast when you're ready. You've probably been living on Triscuits." He smiles at her. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Night, Beckett." He walks to the kitchen, puts the mugs in the sink, turns around and goes to his room while she's still standing in the living room, watching his back. At least she's not shaking any more.

When she's in her room again, she tries to reconstruct their conversation and decides that a bath might help her to sort everything out. Twenty minutes later she's up to her chin in lemon-scented water, idly wondering if there's a pear-and-freesia bubble bath. She's almost dozing when her eyes shoot open. Her pear-and-freesia body lotion in the secret lair's powder room. The notebook is in there, the one she'd left to dry on the towel. She has to put it away with the other notebooks, before Castle can check. She gets out of the tub, dries off quickly and dresses in her turtleneck, leggings and socks.

When she reaches the office, she makes sure that Castle's bedroom door is shut. Good. No light leaking out, either, so he's asleep. She activates the secret door, grateful for its silence. She doesn't know how much time elapses before the panel automatically closes, and to prevent it from doing so, she wheels the desk chair over the threshold. It's just a precaution, since she'll be out a minute, maybe two. She doesn't want to turn on the overhead light, so she uses the flashlight app on her phone and directs it right at the spot on the floor where she'd left the notebook. It's not there, but something else is. Someone. Someone, holding the book.

"Castle?"

"Beckett!"

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Is it dry?" The question just pops out of her, unbidden.

His face is blank. "Is it dry? Is what dry?"

"The page. I hope it is, because I spilled something on it and I blotted it up and spread it open on the towel to dry."

"You spilled?" Still blank.

"Scotch. It would have been coffee but there wasn't any so I was drinking Scotch which maybe was better anyway because coffee really stains."

He's not saying anything. He's not reacting, at all. Maybe she'd better keep talking.

"It didn't stain your tee shirt, so that's good. I used your _Storm Fall_ one which I was wearing to sleep in, but I washed it out and it's fine now. Good as new. I didn't want to use your cashmere sweater even though that could have done a better job of mopping, right? But I mean that might have ruined the sweater so I thought it was better to use the shirt. Oh, and that's why I had to take another one of your shirts to wear, I'm really sorry. The _Black Lagoon_ one. Which I guess you noticed." Geez, he's still just standing there, comatose almost, and she hasn't been this nervous, ever. "You know, before. You probably noticed when we were in here before. A while ago. When I was asleep."

"You were asleep in my shirt."

"Right." He blinked when she said that. At least he blinked. "It was late. I fell asleep."

"It didn't keep you awake?"

Huh? What does that mean? Why doesn't he just say something about the notebook, which is still in his hand? "Um, what?"

They're oddly frozen, standing fifteen feet apart. Neither has moved since their simultaneous discovery of the other, and their expressions haven't changed. They're like a pair of deer in the headlights, though in this case the headlights are the flashlights in two cell phones. Her expression is shock laced with terror, his is shock underlaid with something unidentifiable.

"If I were wearing one of your shirts it would keep me awake." His tone is flat.

"Well, yeah, you would be uncomfortable if you had my shirt." Wait, he _does_ have her shirt, her NYPD one. Doesn't he remember? "Because it would be too small. Since your chest is bigger."

He blinks again, but his face changes. She's not sure what it's telegraphing, but something. "Different, Beckett. My chest is different, not bigger. Yours is bigger. Not your chest, really, your—" What he's looking now is mortified, as he shuts his mouth without finishing his sentence.

Just as it had in the living room not long before, her empty hand moves of its own accord, this time to just below her chin. Her fingers, operating without instruction from her brain, pull the turtleneck away from her skin; her head, also moving against her will, dips down, looks inside her shirt, and looks back up. "My boobs. My boobs are bigger, yeah, because you don't, you know, have any. Boobs. Just pecs. Not just, I didn't mean _just_ , I'm sure your pecs are really good. Or great. Not that I've seen them but you can tell from the way your shirt is. On top of them." Oh hell, now what has she done? She tugs at the hem of her turtleneck.

Okay, she caught him red-handed with the notebook, but she's the one who's red-handed. It's time to fess up, really fess up. The whole megillah, the whole enchilada, the whole nine yards, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her, God. Especially the last part. Help. Help me, God, she thinks. "Castle?"

"Mmm?"

"Could we turn on a light?"

"Oh. Sure. Okay." He takes two steps to a floor lamp and turns it on.

"And maybe sit down?" She gestures to the pair of armchairs, with a small table in between.

"Uh-huh."

So now they're both sitting and he's looking at her while she's silently searching for divine guidance. She rubs her palms over her thighs, clears her throat and dives in. Makes herself look right into his eyes. "I read them. The notebooks." She points to the one he's holding. "Your notebooks. Not all of them, but parts. Some of the entries. It was an accident. Not an accident, I mean not planned. After I'd been in here for a while and knew I would be for a lot longer, I was hoping I could find something to wear. And I opened the drawers and found the clothes. Your mother's were just, too, you know. Anyway, and then Alexis's seemed too small since I'm a lot taller. And then I had yours."

"Goldilocks." He's looking straight into her eyes, too.

"Goldilocks?"

"And the three bears. Mother, Alexis and me. One was too, um, neon? blindingly bright?, one was too small, and one was….One was what?"

She has to swallow, and even then she can barely whisper, "One was just right." She can tell he's about to say something, so she extends her arm, with her palm up, in hopes of keeping him quiet. It works.

"I picked up the tee shirts and saw the notebooks. I didn't know what was in them, but I was so bored. I'd been in here for hours and there was nothing to do, nothing to listen to or watch or anything, so I took them out. I have to say, in my defense, even though I shouldn't be defending myself, that I was also having caffeine withdrawal."

"My fault."

"Your fault?"

"I almost used up the coffee the other day, Beckett. Didn't replace it. Unconscionable." He gives her a little half smile.

"Oh. Right. Well. So I took the notebook on top and opened it and started reading about how you wanted to learn more about baseball so you could." She gulps, audibly, and looks away before steeling herself and turning her eyes back to his. "So you could talk to me about baseball. And maybe persuade me to go to a game with you."

"I already got the tickets."

"What?"

"I already got the tickets. Yankees-Red Sox, Saturday, May 8th. Behind the Yankee dugout."

"Really? You got tickets?"

"Yup."

"Oh. Thank you." She squirms a little in the chair. "I was going to stop right there, I swear, but I couldn't. I read a little more before I put the notebook back in the drawer. I thought I was done. But the next morning I went back and told myself that maybe the other three were about different things, not journals, maybe outlines for more books or something, that would be fun to read. I chose the notebook on the bottom. It began with last April, when you found out about my mom. You said that you needed to have a place to write things about me that you weren't going to write about Nikki. I read a little more and I felt like I needed a drink."

She pauses again, wishing she could drown her sorrows right now with his excellent Scotch. "Then I spilled my drink on one. You'd think that I'd call it quits after that. You'd call it a sign from the universe. Shoulda listened to you, Castle. I felt so guilty, incredibly guilty. And I did stop for a while, tried to play solitaire with a pack of cards I made."

"You made a pack of cards? That's really resourceful." He looks impressed, and curious.

"Yeah, well, they didn't work very well and God, I was like a junkie. I went back to the notebooks. And I read what you wrote. When you were leaving the other day, what you wrote then. Before Colorado." She stops because she's choking up and she doesn't want to do that. If she could just get into her professional Detective Beckett mode and steamroll through this, be what he called her in that first entry, kickass. Kickass but apologetic. She can't though, and she feels a tear land on the back of her hand, which is in her lap. She's not looking at him now, but she does start talking again. "It was so intimate and personal and I'm so ashamed." She wonders when he's going to start screaming at her. She wants the axe to fall. She deserves it. But there's just an excruciating silence until he finally says something so softly that she almost misses it.

"You're embarrassed, Kate?"

"God, yes."

"I meant embarrassed by what I wrote."

"Oh." That's all she can say.

There's another long silence before he continues. "When I got home and found you in here it occurred to me that you might have discovered the notebooks, but you didn't say anything when we were having coffee. And when you went to bed I came in here to get them and lock them up in my bedroom until the time came—and I was really hoping it would come—that I could tell you how I felt. But then I got in here and saw a notebook on the floor and knew for sure that you hadn't just found them, but read them. I was excited, you know? Because I feel like we've gotten close while you were staying here." He stops, and stares at the notebook as if he'd forgotten he had it. "I hoped that you were glad about what I wrote. Or pleased. Flattered, maybe. Even pissed off. Pissed off would be better than you being embarrassed. Because now I am. Unbelievably embarrassed."

He gets up from the chair and she has no idea what he's about to do. Walk out? Throw the notebook in the wastepaper basket? She does the only thing she can think of, although in truth—since she's pledged to be truthful—she doesn't think before she acts. She doesn't look before she leaps, and she actually leaps, right at him. She almost knocks him to the floor as she grabs him around the waist. "Castle!"

"Beckett! What the hell?"

She's holding him as tightly as she can, speaking into the space between his shoulder blades, her nose pressed against his back. "I'm embarrassed at myself for reading something so private without permission. I'm not embarrassed by what you wrote. I love what you wrote, Castle. I love it. I can't believe that you wrote it about _me_."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for all your enthusiasm for this story, which I appreciate more than you can imagine. I don't even really mind the threats I get after each "TBC"! And just so you know, this is the last TBC for this particular story, which will wrap up in chapter 8.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Chapter 8 is not the end, after all. Many people asked me to continue this story and I found that I didn't want to exit, after all, so I'm staying with it.

Castle manages to catch his balance after Beckett launches herself at him, and to stay upright when she delivers the message that warms his scapula and leaves the rest of him buzzing. The first sentence surprises him in its intensity; the second is an immeasurable relief; the third and fourth make him giddy.

But the last one? That crushes the life out of him.

She's still pressed against his back, her arms locked around his waist. He doesn't move except to put his hands over hers, doesn't turn around because he's not sure that he can bear to see her eyes when he asks, "You can't believe that I wrote what I did about _you_?"

He feels more than hears a muffled dissent as her head wags no against him.

"Why?"

"Yvmcnfsehsumfdls."

Now he does turn around, even at the risk of seeing sadness in her eyes. "You're going to have to repeat that."

They're standing face to face now, but he can't read anything at all in hers she's looking at the floor. "You have me confused with somebody else," she says, hunching her shoulders and folding her arms tightly across her chest.

"That's impossible, Beckett. I've never met anyone else like you. Not remotely like you."

"You must know a lot of boring people, then." She looks like a little girl, about to scuff her sneaker through the dirt. "If I'm the most interesting one you ever met."

He lowers the notebook so that it's right at her eye level, rests his other hand on the curve of her spine, and says softly, "You read some of the entries in here."

"Yes."

"And in the other ones."

This time she only nods.

"You know what they are then, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"What are they?"

"Uh, journals?"

"Wrong word. That's not what they are."

"They're not?"

"No. They're love letters. Love letters, Kate. I just didn't have the nerve to send them to you."

Finally, finally, she raises her head. "Oh."

"You know, I'm really relieved that you read them. You did me a huge favor. Huge, huge favor. The whole time I was in Colorado I was trying to work out a way to tell you. When I was in the sauna, when I was skiing, everywhere. I was totally distracted. It's a miracle that I didn't fall and break my leg, which would have been all your fault." That gets a tiny smile from her. "It's also good that you have such extraordinarily high reading-comprehension skills." He's going to wait, see what she has to say before he snowplows on.

"I do?"

"You do." God, he loves it when she wrinkles her brow a tiny bit like that. He's going to wait again, and it doesn't take long.

"Why?"

This is it, then, in case saying "love letters" hadn't sufficed, wasn't forthright enough. He's going to say it. "Because now you know that I love you, Beckett. No question. I love you. I love you." He's struggling to keep his voice from cracking. "I'm in love with you."

What she does next takes him completely by surprise. She steps forward, closes the gap between them, hugs him very gently, presses her forehead to the slight hollow between his collarbones, and breathes deeply. "You smell so good, Castle," she says after what seems like an eternity yet isn't nearly long enough. "When I was wearing your tee shirts I wanted them to smell more of you, but they were all clean. They'd been through the washer and dryer, so they had almost no trace of you. That's one of the reasons I put on your sweater. Because that really does smell of you."

He wants her to lift her face up to his, or to bring his down to hers. He is almost desperate to kiss her, but he doesn't want to interrupt her or alter the atmosphere, so he's content to hug her back and listen until she stops talking.

"I found my body cream in the bathroom. That amazed me. Kind of freaked me out at first, but not after a while. When I was reading the, um, when I was reading. I put down the reading for a minute and went to rub the body cream on my hands, so that I smelled like both of us, you know?"

Oh, he knows. He knows. He knows. What he doesn't know is how much longer he can stand here, mute and unmoving.

She returns to the deep breathing, and just as he is about to say something, she starts again. "Not really both of us. It was both us, together. It smelled like us together." She drops her arms, and takes his right hand in her left. "Castle?"

"Yes?"

"Can we go to bed now?"

"Wow!" He couldn't help himself.

"I mean to go to sleep? I'm exhausted. Can barely stand up."

"Oh." He hopes that his disappointment doesn't show. He's made the declaration of a lifetime and she's been talking about how they smell together and she wants to sleep? "Of course. Sure. It's been a long day."

She tugs on his hand and tilts her head to look at him. And then she smiles as he has never seen her smile before, and his knees almost give in. "C'mon, Castle. Let's get out of here." She pulls him along to the door, where his desk chair is still standing sentinel, and once they're over the threshold he uses his free hand to push the chair back to the desk.

He gives her hand a small squeeze, lets it go, and tries to sound cheery as he jerks his head towards his bedroom door. "This is my stop, Beckett. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well."

She lunges to grab his hand. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're sending me to bed?"

"Er, you said you were going to sleep? Wanted to sleep?"

"Well, yeah. But I was hoping that I could do that in your bed. With you. Together."

He knows that he's staring, but he can't help it. Bengal flares, pinwheels, turbillions, whistles, crackling comets, fountains, Roman candles—every variety of firework is going off in his head. How can he sleep with all that going on? He shakes his head. "Of course. Yes. Right. Together."

"Already brushed my teeth."

"Me, too. Brushed them. All ready to go. Here, right here." He ushers her into his room.

She moves to the left, and drops onto the right side of the bed. "This okay, Castle? If I'm here? Looks like you sleep on the other side."

She could take the middle, sleep on the diagonal, anything she wants.

"Good, that's good."

"Oh, but I can't."

What? She can't what? What can't she?

She pulls on her turtleneck. "This isn't comfy to sleep in. I'll feel like I'm strangling. Do you mind if I borrow one of your tee shirts? See, this time I'm asking permission." She smiles that smile again. He's going to need an arctic shower soon if she keeps doing that.

"Let me get you one. Right over here. I'll get it. Do you have a preference? You know, color, anything?"

"Nope. You choose. Anything will be fine."

She stands up on her five-feet-long or whatever they are legs, takes the tee shirt he's holding out to her, and goes into the bathroom to change. A minute later she's back, engulfed in his yellow Green Lantern tee shirt. He briefly wonders, as he tries not to stare, why it isn't green. She climbs into bed, gets under the covers, and pats the space next to her. "I won't bite."

"Really? I was hoping you would." Oh, shit. He'd been doing so well, too. Why, why, why?

She laughs. "Well, not tonight, anyway."

Thank you, he thinks. Thank you, whoever it is who protects me when I say incredibly stupid things. And so he slides cautiously under the covers, staying as far away from her as his large frame allows. Once he's settled, he lets himself turn his head to the right, just enough so that he can see her. "Night, Beckett." But she's already asleep. And he looks down and finds, to his astonishment, that she's holding onto two of his fingers. And that's enough for now. More than enough. And he falls asleep, too.

When he wakes up, several hours later, he feels very warm. He's pretty sure it's snowing, so why is he warm? He cracks open one eye. Oh, dear God, that's why. She's sprawled over most of him. He's wrapped in a Beckett duvet. A Kate comforter. He is never getting out of bed again, ever.

The Beckett duvet has green eyes, which are looking right at him. "Hi, Castle."

"Morning, Beckett."

She wiggles a little. If she does that again he's in deep and serious trouble. "So, how was it?"

She's asking how was it? How was what? Did they do something? Did he hit his head when they were having sex and lose his memory? What cruel god would allow that? He must look lost and pathetic because she elaborates.

"How was it me being in the bed with you? Rather than you here all alone, fantasizing about me while I was asleep upstairs."

"Gotta tell you. Great as this is, I'm still fantasizing."

"Castle."

"Not pushing, not pushing. I still can't believe you're here at all."

"Neither can I, Castle. Impetuous is not exactly my middle name."

"You're middle name's Houghton."

She sits up quickly, which makes one shoulder peek out from the XXXL Green Lantern shirt, which in turns makes him have XXX thoughts. "How did you know that?"

"Told you I was a snoop."

No, Beckett, no. Don't push the shirt back up over your shoulder.

"How did you find out?"

"I might have gotten your birth certificate."

Does she know that she's crawling onto his chest?

"You got my birth certificate? For what?"

"Oh, I wanted to know more about you. You know, like how much you weighed."

She swats him on the chest.

"Ow!" He rubs the spot where she had smacked him. "You know, for someone who came into this world at eight pounds and probably doesn't weigh more than a hundred and twenty now, you pack a hell of a wallop."

She's still lying on his chest. "Are we even?"

"Even?"

"In snooping. What I did, what you did."

"God, I hope so."

"So this is a truce."

"If I had a peace pipe, we'd be smoking."

"I thought I was, Castle. That's what you said in one of the, the journals."

"Love letters."

"You said I was smoking hot."

"You are. You definitely are."

"Then why are you just lying there? I may be hot, but I could really use some stoking."

"Why, Beckett!"

"Forgive my terrible language, but I've been stuck in a secret lair for two days without coffee and thought I might die in there before someone found me."

"Does this mean I can kiss you?"

"Damn right you can. For starters."

 **A/N** Thank you again for reading, reviewing, favoriting and following. I promised no more TBC, so I won't type TBC, but I will in fact continue, and hope that you will, too. Have a great weekend, everyone.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle and Beckett are in bed. Their clothes are elsewhere.

He's flat on his back, trying to catalogue his body parts since he's not sure of anything except that he has had several out-of-body experiences in the last couple of hours. "You know when we woke up this morning?"

She's lying on her side, her right leg draped over his and one arm stretched across his chest. "Yes, I do. I do know, believe it or not. More important, I remember everything thing that happened after that, Castle. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g." She raises her head just enough so that she can kiss him on the ribs.

"That's good, because I might need you to spell it all out for me later. So we can repeat it."

"How about now?" She's tickling him. "In case I'm suddenly struck with short-term memory loss."

"No, no. Not now. I can't move. Not in any way that would do either of us any good."

"Did you have a question about when we first woke up?"

He smiles. "Not a question. Just wanted to say that when I did, and saw you here, I decided that I'd never get out of bed for the rest of my life."

"You?" Her eyes are huge. "Really? Not even for a snack?"

"You're the only snack I need, Beckett."

"Well, you've been snacking plenty this morning."

They're both so loopy that they can do nothing but laugh until they strain the few remaining bits of them that aren't already overworked. When they finally stop, she rolls over and stands up, a little unsteadily.

"Wait!" He says, propping himself up on one elbow. "Where are you going?"

"You may stay in bed forever, but I have to catch up on my caffeine consumption. I'm going to make lattes for both of us, now that I've mastered that ridiculous machine of yours in the kitchen."

"That ridiculous machine of mine is the Lamborghini of coffee makers."

"Not the Ferrari of coffee makers?"

"I like to spread around my Italian sports-car analogies, Beckett."

"Good to know," she says, deliberately exaggerating the sway of her hips as she leaves the room.

"Don't spill the lattes!" he shouts. "Remember, you're naked."

She returns and puts her head through the door. "So are you. And may I remind you, if I spill anything in here you're more exposed to danger than I am." And with that parting shot she leaves for the kitchen, again, and he pulls the covers up to his waist.

He sits up against the head board, daydreaming, until she walks in with the coffee. She hands him his, puts her own on the night stand, gets back in bed, and slithers over to him. "You know what, Castle?"

"What?"

"I think you were right."

"I was?" He's so surprised that he almost drops his mug. "About what?"

"Your chest. And mine. I think mine is bigger, after all."

"You do?" He's looking hungrily at her breasts.

"Yes, because what you have surrounding your nipples is muscle, whereas what I have surrounding mine is—"

"Flesh. Succulent, succulent flesh. Incredibly smooth and soft and plump."

"Plump? You're calling my boobs plump? Like, fat?"

"No! Plump as in perfect. A perfect mouthful."

"Are we returning to the snack discussion?" She pinches him.

"Ouch! No!"

"Well, we should," she says, after taking a long drink of coffee, "but on a more elevated plane."

"Ooooh," he murmurs into her ear. "I love it when you talk like that. Especially when you have no clothes on."

"I'm serious."

"Me, too."

"I'm seriously hungry. For breakfast, before you say something. Like eggs. Toast. Fruit. I've been living on secret lair food for days."

Castle turns to his nightstand and checks his phone. "Almost three o'clock. Can't have breakfast. It's way past breakfast time."

"I'm not engaging in a semantic debate with you. Ever hear of all-day breakfast? Very popular in many New York establishments."

"Semantic? You're killing me here, Kate."

She raises one eyebrow, daring him to refuse her breakfast. "Well?"

"You're right. You're right. This establishment definitely serves all-day breakfast. You wanna help?"

"Nope, I wanna watch."

"Oh, God, this gets better every time you say something. Do we really have to get out of bed?"

"Yes," she says, but not before giving his shoulder a shove. This time when she gets up she pulls on the Green Lantern shirt and some socks, but when she turns arounds finds that he hasn't moved. "You coming, Castle? And don't say what I know you want to say."

"Yeah, yeah. You drive a hard bargain."

She waits for him to put on his boxers before she replies. "You're a pretty hard driver yourself, as I learned earlier today." She's running for the kitchen and can hear him howling her name. By the time he arrives she's sitting on a stool at the island, resting her chin in her hand. "Hey, Castle. As they say in England, would you like me to lay the table?"

He braces himself on the counter next to the fridge. "I respectfully request that you not say another word until breakfast is ready."

"Mmmm," she hums, dragging one finger seductively across her lips as if to zip them shut. "Mmmm."

"I could die before I finish scrambling these," he grumbles as he beats half a dozen eggs in a bowl. He puts English muffins in the toaster, slices a grapefruit, and returns to the eggs, which are beginning to bubble in the pan.

"Mmmm."

"Beckett!"

"Mmmm?"

"Please stop licking your lips."

"Mmhmm."

"I can still see the tip of your tongue."

"Hmm?"

"Aaaghhhh!" He turns off the stove, dishes out the eggs and puts a toasted muffin on each plate. "Everything's ready."

"Good," she says brightly. "We going to eat right here?"

"Yes," he says, giving one plate to her and putting the other down for himself before dropping onto the stool next to hers. "Yes, we are."

Beckett takes a bite of eggs, and another and another, before picking up her knife to butter her muffin. "Oh," she says around a mouthful. "Butter. I absolutely loooooove butter, don't you?" She chews carefully and swallows. "Especially when it's warm and melting, like this. And it has so many uses. Quite incredible how many ways you can use butter, isn't it?" She reaches over to wipe a dab of it from his cheek with her thumb. "Yum," she says, after licking her thumb. "Yummy."

He grabs her wrist, and kisses her thumb. "You are driving me insane. On purpose. Have you ever, have you ever, had sex on a kitchen island?"

"Do you have any ice cream?"

"What? Did you hear what I just asked?"

"Yes. Do you have any ice cream?"

"Why?"

She's beaming. "Well, if we had ice cream here first then it would be like sex on a dessert island."

"Oh my God, Beckett," he says, putting a hand over his heart. "Where have you been all my life?"

There's an unexpected silence as she looks down at her lap. And then at last she looks back up and says, "Different places, Castle. But not any more. I'm here. Right here with you."

They eat the ice cream, much later, in bed. They doze and talk and make out and take a long bath and go to bed together as if it were the normal end of a normal day.

"Castle. Castle. Castle." He could swear that someone's calling him, that Beckett's calling him, which isn't possible because they're asleep. "CASTLE! Wake up!"

"I'm awake. I am. What's wrong?" He expects to see her next to him, but she's standing by the bed, wearing pants, a sweater and the sexiest boots ever made. He needs to know by whom so he can buy her a dozen more pairs. "Why are you dressed?"

"Because we have to go out."

"We can eat here. No need to go out. 's cold." He falls back onto his pillow. A hand comes from nowhere, wraps itself around his forearm, and starts to pull him across the bed.

"Up, Castle. We have to go."

He's pretty sure this is a battle he can't win, and since he doesn't even know what the battle's about, he gets out of bed. "Just going to shave and brush my teeth. You can tell me what the dress code is and where we're going and why."

Beckett chooses a shirt and a pair of pants for him, lays them out on the bed, and joins him in the bathroom. "Alexis is coming home."

"Right. In a couple of days."

"That's why we have to go. I could do it by myself but it would be good if you help me look. Maybe we could find it today."

He puts his razor down, though at least a third of his jaw is still covered in foam. "Look? For what?"

"My new apartment."

He feels as if he's been hit by a fully loaded moving van. "Oh."

"If I stay here any longer Alexis will know about us. Even if we can put up a good act, she'll catch me when I'm sneaking into your room, I know it. Even if I avoid the squeaky step."

"You know about the squeaky step?" He sounds a little squeaky, too.

"Of course I do, Castle. I'm a detective."

"Right." He runs a towel across his face, doesn't care if he's partly unshaven. Beckett is leaving. "Why do you mind if Alexis knows about us?"

"I don't, but I think she will. I think it'll embarrass her."

"You're kidding, right? She's crazy about you."

"But it's different if she knows I'm, you know."

"What."

"Castle!"

"Go on, say it."

"Havingincrediblesexthreetimesanightwithherfatherrightdownstairs."

For some reason that cheers him up. "Three times a night? Is that a promise?"

She covers her face with her hands. "Let's go, Castle. I have a list. Four places. They all seem like really good possibilities."

His cheeriness takes a dive, but he slaps on a smile and takes her hand. "Lead on, Beckett. Where's the first one?"

"Avenue A and Sixth. Fourth-floor walk-up, but that means it'll have great light."

"Right."

It does have great light. Also no bathtub, only one closet, and a cockroach welcoming committee. The next is more of same; the other two, worse. They go back to the loft.

"I'm never going to find a place, Castle," Beckett says from the sofa, where she is sitting as if posing for a Portrait of Misery. "The housing market is wack. I'll have to go live in Staten Island or Bay Ridge and it'll take me at least an hour to get to work."

There's a banging noise in his head, and it's getting louder. It's an idea begging to come through the door and he's going to let it in. "I think I have a solution."

"Oh, God, Castle," she says, slipping from misery to despair. "I don't know if I can hear this."

"Don't panic, Beckett."

"I would, but you don't have a panic room."

"That's just it! I don't have a panic room, I have a secret lair. And it's perfect."

 **A/N** Thank you so much for the big welcome back for this story. (Shhh, TBC.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

No, that can't be right. He can't be thinking that, suggesting it. "It's perfect? For what?"

"For you!"

"Me? You think I should live there?"

He's bouncing around as if he'd fallen into a vat of Silly Putty. "Of course I do! Yes yes yes. Think about it. It's bigger than a lot of places you could afford and you could definitely afford this because it's free. You never cook so you don't need a real kitchen, but it has what you'd use: a top-of-the-line coffeemaker, which I realize is probably the most important accouterment in your life, a little fridge, a microwave. The bed has a fantastic mattress—you liked it, didn't you? You slept well on it and you read in bed?"

"Yes, but—"

"Not finished, not finished. And there's a sofa and chairs and tables and a desk and lamps. Do you like the furniture? It's okay if you don't, I'll get rid of it and you can put whatever you want in there. Your taste, not mine. Anything you'd like. We can put book cases on that big expanse of wall, and you can also put things on the shelves around the bed. I'll take all of my clothes out, and Alexis's and mother's, and there's a big closet and I will install a TV in here and you can have your laptop."

"Castle."

He puts his hands up. "Hear me out, please."

"Okay." He's not on speed is he? He acts like it, but when would he have taken it? Or felt the need?

"The only thing it doesn't have is a full bath, but mine is right next door. Think of the fun we can have in the tub. Oh, and the shower, Beckett! The shower! I know there's no window in the room, but since the secret part of the secret lair isn't a secret any more, I could have a window put in. Two, if you want. Not a problem. And here's a plus, a big, big plus. The room's soundproof, so you can scream as loud as you want and no one will hear you. Except me, and I love that you're loud."

"Castle!"

"You are, it's so sexy." His whole face is smiling. "And your vocabulary! You knocked me out. I had to look up that word you used right after you—"

"Castle!"

"And you're the only person I've ever heard say 'priapic' and make it sound musical instead of pervy."

"Are you finished?" she asks, hoping for a tone of recaptured dignity.

"Oh." He looks startled.

"I can't live here."

And there it is again, heading right for him, that full-loaded moving van. "You can't? Why not?"

In her head she's saying: right, good question. And the unspoken answer is: because she would get too comfortable here. Be too happy. She would never want to leave. Okay, she'll tell him that she's an independent woman. She needs her independence. Right. She'll just explain it to him. "Because." Oh, God, that's it? Some explanation. She's suppressing a wince.

"Because? Because? That's your reason?"

"Um. Well. Yeah." She's wincing, she can feel it, shit. She's supposed to be able to think on her feet. She's a detective, for God's sake. It's his fault. His fault because she is incapable of rational thought, even suspiciously improbable thought, when he's looking at her like that with those blue eyes. Why can't he just shut his eyes? That would help. "I'm afraid that I'd be invading your privacy."

"You're kidding."

Geez, he's not asking, he's stating. Outright.

"Not kidding."

"How could you possibly be invading my privacy?"

"How can you ask that after what I just did?" Ah, now we're getting somewhere. "I broke into your room, Castle. And then I opened drawers and peeked around and read your notebooks which you'd obviously put in a place that was meant to be just for you. But I read them anyway and I kept reading them when I knew exactly what they were about. Can't get much more privacy-invasive than that."

"So?"

"So?"

"So that's my point. I have nothing to hide from you. You've read all that, or enough to know how I feel and what I think. What do I have left to hide?"

"Porn?" Oh, Jesus, what made her say that? Why can't she be transported to an alternate universe and rewind this entire talk?

"Porn? No, no. I threw all my porn away earlier this morning."

"Huh?"

"No point in keeping it anymore, Beckett. Not after what we've done in the last thirty-six hours. Believe me, there's no porn on earth that can compete with you."

Whoa, there's a conversation stopper. Or starter, except that her voice has taken flight and left the rest of her here, mute.

"Beckett?"

Voice still gone, but she is blushing more than any woman of her age and experience should. She manages an "mmm?"

"I'm gonna make a guess here, okay?"

She nods. Good, at least those muscles are functioning.

"I'm guessing that you're worried about _your_ privacy. That you won't have any? That I won't give you any? Never mind my mother. Wait, you don't want to bring guys back there, do you?"

She shakes her head. And then she puts up her hands, as if in surrender. For whatever reason, her voice returns. "No. I don't want to bring any guys back there."

"What about me? You want to have your wicked way with me back there, Beckett?"

"I might."

"Can we not get out of bed ever again?"

"Castle, I think you have clinomania."

"Oh my God, you did it again. What is clinomania?"

"An obsessive desire to stay in bed."

"I confess, then. When it comes to you, I suffer from an extreme case of clinomania. I'm a clinomaniac and I decline treatment."

He's kidding around, but it's adorable. She knows that she's getting into some deep water, and it's time to swim in it. Woman up and swim in it. "Castle. We need to talk about something."

She looks so serious all of a sudden. The moving van. That fucking moving van has reappeared, and it's aimed right at him. All eighteen wheels could crush him right here. Except. Except maybe not? Maybe he should take a cue from her and be serious. This is a serious thing. He seriously seriously loves her. "We do. I want you to know that I'm serious about offering you this place to stay. You don't have to stay forever. I'm don't want to box you in. But you can stay as long as you're comfortable and you would be saving a lot of money so maybe you could get a place that's closer than Bay Ridge or Staten Island."

Oh, she has that smile again. That smile just flattened all eighteen tires on the moving van, and he's safe. "I know you are. I know. But before anything else I really want to talk about privacy. Really. Because no matter what you said before, I'm still embarrassed about what I did, precisely because I'm always yelling at you to respect my privacy."

She leans forward and squeezes her hands between her knees, getting the courage to say this.

"Beckett—"

"Not finished, not finished."

"Okay."

"The only way I can make up for this, and live with it, is to ask you to ask me anything. It's my punishment for reading your notebooks."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean anything. Ask me anything in the world. Take your best shot. Ask me the most embarrassing, private thing you can think of, and I'll answer."

"Can I ask you two? One embarrassing, one private?"

"Yes. Sure. Go ahead. I deserve it."

"Okay, here's the potentially embarrassing one. When did you stop minding that I was writing Nikki, that I was following you around? Because I know it happened. Eventually you stopped wanting to kill me."

She's looking not quite at him, but somewhere near his shoulder. "October twentieth and twenty-first, last year."

"Really? But that was, like, almost exactly when _Heat Wave_ came out. And two days? "

"Two days, two things. On the twentieth, we were at your book launch, remember?"

"Of course I remember, you had on that, that, that blue dress. With the thing, you know, in the back. Exposed. And the front. I kept hoping that you'd sneeze and something would pop out."

"Sorry I disappointed you. But I read the dedication—"

"I called you extraordinary. Which, by the way, is totally insufficient. I'd say more, if I could go back."

"Anyway, I read the dedication and it was so sincere and I was really touched. And then we had the fight after the party and you told me you were going to do the Bond book. But then, the next day? You turned it down."

"Got that three-book Nikki Heat book. A ton of money."

"But Castle, you turned down the James Bond deal. James Bond. Your guy. And that's when I didn't want to kill you any more. Not when you did that for me. And you know what? I'm not at all embarrassed to admit it. Kind of glad you know now."

"I'm amazed."

"What, you thought it was sooner? Please."

"No, I'd have thought it was later."

"Guess I'm good at keeping things secret, Castle." Oh. Not the right thing to say, not now. Damn, damn, damn. And here come those blue eyes. Oh, God. "So, let me have it, then. Ask me the privacy thing." Not ready not ready not ready. Not ready at all.

He looks right at her, willing her not to look away. He's going to take a minute before he asks. He's so nervous, because what if he gets the wrong answer? He's afraid to touch her, so he'll just have to keep hoping that the eyes are enough. "You know, Kate, everything has changed since I got back."

"We had sex."

"We didn't just have sex. When I found you asleep in there I almost lost it. I was already so in love with you, but then I saw that you were wearing my clothes. I thought my heart would explode or implode, I don't know. But right then, that second, I fell even more in love with you. I hadn't thought it was possible. And since then? God, I can't tell you. So, here's my question, the real privacy shatterer."

He's not saying anything. Why is he waiting? She has to take it, whatever it is. She promised. "Okay."

"Are you in love with me?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Beckett is very still as she marks this moment. She and Castle are sitting on the sofa in the living room of his loft, an apartment which probably has a price tag of $10,000,000. All her worldly goods—a purse, some winter clothes, a licensed gun, four books, her mother's ring, and her father's watch—would fit in one box. She doesn't own a suitcase. Castle has asked her a question, and she's going to answer.

"One hundred fifty milliseconds."

He shakes his head in obvious confusion. That's her answer? "Sorry, what?"

"One hundred fifty milliseconds. That's the speed of thought on a simple question, how long it takes the brain to act on information it receives. You asked, 'Are you in love with me?' That's a simple question about the most complex emotion in the world. My brain probably reacted in a hundred and fifty milliseconds, but it might at first have registered your question as 'Do you love me?' That's a very different one, but it's the one my brain halfway expected. It needed recalibrating when it received different information, a question that it hadn't anticipated at all. 'Are you in love with me?' "

He's pretty sure that his own brain has shifted into some other dimension. He's looking at her, but she's looking at her knees while she speaks. She hasn't moved, but she's speaking slowly, pausing between sentences as if she were writing them in the air.

"I've loved a lot of people. Not a lot, really, because I guard my heart too closely. But several people. I've loved, do love several people. I'm sad about the diminution of 'I love you.' People say it all the time, you know? 'Off to the dentist, I love you!' 'Did you remember to buy shoelaces? I love you!' When someone says 'I love you' to me, or I say it to someone, I want it to have weight, not to be some automatic, meaningless exchange."

She's taking another long break and he's keeping his silence. And then she lifts her head and turns to him. "But have I ever been in love? Honestly? No."

No? His brain might just as well shut down, along with his heart. He had been so full of hope when he'd asked her. He wants to listen to what she's saying, but it's like eating broken glass. He owes it to her, though. She had said that he could ask her anything, and he had. And now she's answering and he has to pay attention and pay the price. Her mouth is opening again. Her beautiful mouth.

"I've never been in love before. I've never been in love, until now. I love you, Castle, and I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you and I don't know how to handle it." Her hand creeps across the small space between then, and covers his. "I don't have any instructions."

The moving van just reversed direction and has left the building. It's gone.

Castle raises their joined hands, opens them slightly and kisses her palm. Eventually he brings them back down, smiles at her and says, "That's the great thing about it. You don't need any."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Castle?"

"Mmmhmm?"

"I know I've never been in this situation before, but."

She stopped? Why did she stop there? And why does she sound so shy?

"Right."

"But doesn't it call for a kiss?"

For a big man, Castle can move with remarkable speed and grace. He does both as he pulls her legs over and stretches her out on the sofa. The words are still hovering over them when he says, "It does. It calls for the kiss of the year. Let me show you." He does, and she returns it. It's a kiss that neither one of them is likely to forget, ever. It starts very tenderly, but heats up very quickly, and they're half undressed when Castle says, "Stop."

"Stop? Not a chance. Get back here."

"Stop just for a second," he says, before rolling off the sofa and drawing her up with him. "You know where we should go, Beckett? The perfect place?"

"Anywhere with a comfortable flat surface, Castle."

"We're going to the secret lair."

"The not-panic room?"

"Exactly.''

They abandon their clothes, and in less than ninety seconds they're on the Murphy bed, with her on top and him looking up at her. "This is where you read the notebooks, isn't it? In my boxers."

"Love letters, Castle, where I read your love letters. And yes, in your boxers. Until that that last entry, and then I was in nothing at all. Took 'em right off."

"Oh, my God, don't tell me. No, do tell me. No, just recreate it for me."

She does. And more. A lot more. Considerably later, while they're lying there wrapped up in each other and part of a sheet, he says, "I think you may have broken me."

"Same here," she mumbles into his bicep. "Dunno if I can move. Lemme see."

"Oh, what was that?"

"That? That was a test wriggle, Castle. Want me to do it again?"

"Please. Yes, please." He twitches, all over. "Oh, Jesus, you did."

"Gonna do it again, but I'm warning you."

He inhales sharply. "Warning?"

"Yeah. This time the test wriggle includes my hands."

"Uhhhhhh."

"And the next one will include my mouth."

"I knew it was a good idea to come in here."

"No more talking."

After that there was no talking per se, not talking as in conversation, but there were plenty of words. The kind of words that soundproofing was designed to keep from penetrating the rest of the apartment, and possibly the entire building.

Beckett regained (some of) her senses first. "Castle?"

"Mrhhpph."

"Is clinomania contagious?"

He can't contain himself: he snorts. "You have it now, Beckett? You who mocked me for it so recently?"

"I apologize. Can we order dinner from here?"

"You know that trap door you thought I might have in my office, with the chute that went to the garage? I could have one installed here and slide down to the car in my robe, drive to a restaurant, get curbside delivery, come right back. Wouldn't have to get dressed and walk to the front door."

"How'd you get back up here, though?"

"Oh. Good point. How can you be so rational right now?"

"I'm a woman."

"I noticed, but what's that got to do with it?"

She walks her fingers dangerously low across his stomach. "Faster recovery time."

Beckett is also the one who opts for getting out of bed and taking a shower.

"I'm getting in there with you," Castle says as he trails her to his bathroom.

"Okay, but no funny business."

"Don't worry, I'm way too tired for any kind of business, especially funny."

As soon as they've toweled off, they order food. To prove to themselves that they can conquer clinomania, at least temporarily, they eat at the dining room table.

"Wow, Castle," she says, taking a chair. "Cloth napkins. Silverware. China. And pizza. You really know how to treat a woman."

"I let you choose the toppings."

"That's true. You're such a gentleman." She takes a slice and chews contemplatively. When she's done, she wipes her hands on the navy blue linen napkin, folds it neatly, puts it next to her plate and remains quiet.

"You okay, Beckett?"

Her lips turn up just a bit. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just, it's, it's been quite a day. You know?"

He leans over and leaves a feathery kiss on her cheekbone. "I do."

"We still have to talk, Castle."

Oh, no. She must be kidding. She's kidding. Just in case she's not, he'll use a diversionary tactic. "Can't talk. Got pizza stuck to the roof of my mouth. Need to get some water." He's half standing when a hand lands on his arm like a vise. God, that woman is strong.

"Castle."

She presses hard, and pushes him back down onto the chair.

"We have to talk about me moving."

"I will throw myself in front of that van, I swear to God. I will lie spread-eagle on the windshield so the driver can't see and will have to stop."

She looks alarmed, the kind of alarm you register when you suspect that you're only two feet away from a lunatic. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Really. But what do we have to talk about? We love each other. We are in love with each other. See how easy that is to say? Why do you have to move out?"

"Because it's too soon."

"Okay, it doesn't have to be NPR."

He sees her eyebrows go up. "National Public Radio?"

"The Not-Panic Room. You don't have to live there, but you don't have to _leave_. You can be in your room upstairs, right? The way you have been? I know an incredible carpenter. I can call him and he'll be here in an hour, work all night if I ask, and fix that step. It will never squeak again. It won't squeak if there's a sumo wrestling match on the staircase, I promise."

It's hard to say no to this kind of illogical logic. "Huh. So you know some sumo wrestlers, eh?"

"Carpenter might. He's kind of an super-sized guy himself. Seriously, Kate. I don't understand why you have to move. Is it mother and Alexis? Don't you want them to know? Wait, we're not keeping this a secret are we?"

She hugs her arms to her chest, which makes her look small and suddenly fragile, nothing like the woman he knows. "No, Castle, it's not that. Although we do have to keep it a secret at work, at least until I can talk to Montgomery about it, at some point." She transfers her gaze to the rest of the pizza and sighs. "Here's the thing. You are the most outgoing person in the world. You wouldn't mind if the sumo guys moved in here tomorrow."

"That'd be kind of cool, actually. I want to watch what they eat to get that way. What do you think?"

"See, that's just it. You'd be making five meals a day for the wrestlers so you could find out everything about them. I love that about you, your limitlessly inquisitive nature, even if I occasionally complain about it."

"You love other things about me, too, Beckett. You said."

"I do." She runs her hand around the outside of his ear. "But I have lived a solitary life for a long time, Castle. I have to learn how to grow into another kind of life with another person. With you. I love the idea of it, but I can't throw myself into it in a day, or a month. You know, I didn't have a partner at the precinct for years. It was me, and it was the boys. We were a team, are a team, but they were partners and I was on my own. You came along and, well, that wasn't the easiest road at the beginning, was it? You drove me crazy. So, I need to find a place of my own now more than ever."

He blanches. "You're not worried about us, are you? That this isn't the real deal? Because I'm telling you, this is the realest deal of my life. You're not moving out because of that? Because you're afraid we won't work?"

"No, Castle, I'm moving out so I can make sure that we will work."

"Can I help you look for apartments tomorrow? Tomorrow is Tuesday. I hear that's the best day of the week to go apartment hunting."

She starts laughing and the air clears. Everything feels light. "Tuesday? Why is it the best day?"

"I'd think that was obvious, Beckett," he says with a sniff, helping himself to another slice of pizza, one that had seemed so unappealing just a minute before. "It's after Monday and before Wednesday."

"That's good enough for me, Castle."

 **A/N** One more chapter to go, and this time I'm serious! An even dozen. Thank you all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Tuesday turns out not to be great for apartment hunting, at least for Beckett. It's fruitless and dismal. Wednesday is worse. And Thursday? After a string of not-if-this-were-the-last-place-on-Earth tours, she's ready to surrender to clinomania and stay in bed forever—or at least until Monday, when she has to go back to work.

Alexis is home from Colorado and Beckett has officially returned to the guest room upstairs. On Friday, Castle's daughter leaves early for a friend's all-day-skating-and-a-movie birthday party. Beckett gets up briefly to see her off, then climbs the stairs and goes back to bed. Some time later she's woken by a host of sensory stimuli. There's the squeak of a step, quickly followed by the smell of coffee, an unwelcome rush of cool air against her bare legs as someone peels back the bedclothes, and the very welcome sensation of that same someone's tongue on the skin just below her left ear.

"Morning, my little groundhog," says Castle, who has pulled the bedclothes back up over the two of them and is snuggled against her back.

Beckett sits up to drink some coffee, slides back down, rolls over, and swats him lightly on the shoulder. "Your little groundhog?"

"Ouch. Would you rather I called you my little woodchuck? Or whistlepig?"

"None of the above. And why am I suddenly a member of the marmot family, anyway? Among other things, I do not have buck teeth."

"Because you're burrowed in your bed and apparently do not intend to re-emerge until winter is over. Not that I'm complaining, since I'm your official co-burrower."

"I'm never going to find an apartment anywhere around here, Castle," she says, pressing her forehead into his chest. "I'll be riding the ferry every day like Melanie Griffith in _Working Girl._ "

"Not true. You liked that place on Hester Street. It was great."

"It was six-thousand-dollars-a-month great, Castle. It should come with a butler for that. Way out of my price range."

"Not if I—"

"No. Absolutley not. We have talked this to death."

"Well, I think we should let the argument rise again, like Lazarus."

"I am not letting you pay for my apartment, Castle. That's final. End of discussion. Case closed."

"How about if you let me be your butler? I won't charge you a cent, and wait 'til you see me buttle."

Before he can describe his buttling prowess, which he almost certainly would illustrate with visual aids, Beckett's phone rings. She reaches for it and looks surprised at the caller ID. "Dad? Is everything okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" her father asks.

"No reason. Just, you know, you don't usually call me at—" she takes the phone away from her ear to check the time—"at ten-thirty in the morning on a weekday."

"Do you remember Mr. Harrison? Sam Harrison?"

"Sure, the Harrisons used to live down the hall from us. Why? Did something happen to him? I haven't even thought of him in ages."

"No, he's fine. He lives on West Sixty-Seventh Street now. He's widowed, three years."

"Oh, I'm sorry. She was nice. Took those baking classes and used to give me her experiments. So, what's up?"

"I had dinner with him last night and he was telling me that he's about to go to Brussels for a year, doing a consultancy for NATO. And his apartment will be empty. Well, it'll be furnished, because he's not taking anything with him, but there won't be anyone living there. I mentioned that you'd been having a hard time finding a place since you lost yours, and he offered you his."

"Dad, that's by Lincoln Center. It must cost a fortune."

"He doesn't want any money, Katie. His housing in Brussels is free. He likes the idea of a responsible person being in his apartment, keeping an eye on things, you know. If you're interested. For however long you need it over the next year."

"He's serious, Dad? Really?"

"Completely. He's leaving a week from tomorrow, so you should get in touch with him ASAP if you're interested."

"Oh, my God, of course I'm interested. I've seen nothing but the most depressing places all week. Could you text me his numbers, please?"

"Done."

They chat companionably for a couple of minutes. As soon as she ends the call, she squeals and kicks her heels against the sheets. "Castle Castle Castle Castle! I have a place to live! I can't believe it. An apartment. And it's a block from the subway."

He knows that he's being a little unreasonable, but he's afraid that the rattling and banging that he hears in his head is the moving van driving down Broome Street, about to stop in front of his building. What if she never comes back? What if she loves her independence so much that she wants to keep it? What he wants to do is shout, "YOU ALREADY HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE, BECKETT! IT'S RIGHT HERE." What he does instead is say, "Oh." He's trying, but it's very dispirited. "Oh. That's really good."

"That wouldn't fool a three-year-old, Castle," she says. "You don't think it's good at all."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just don't want you to go."

"It's not for forever, you know."

"Are you sure?"

"I only have the place for a year."

"And then what?"

Beckett gets up on her knees and pivots so that she's straddling his thighs. "That's the point, Castle. I'm going to work really hard on the then. On us. On the future. That's why I'm doing it. Okay?"

"Yeah," he says. He's about as morose as she's ever heard.

"You know that I love you."

"Yeah."

"Since I'm not sure that I'm getting through to you, I'm going to be explicit. If nothing else, you must be feeling it. That I love you. On your thigh. Where I'm sitting."

He's looking at her, but not reacting.

"C'mon, Castle." She waits a beat and then gives him her most seductive smile. "Don't be a wet blanket."

That does it. He laughs, and laughs some more. "Can't have that, Beckett," he says. "A wet sheet maybe, but not a wet blanket."

The following Friday, with very mixed emotions, she packs her things in a corrugated carton from Amazon. It takes two minutes. Castle is horrified.

"Stay right here," he says, as he puts on his coat and walks towards the door. He reappears an hour later with a hand-stitched leather suitcase. "Leaving here with everything in a box is unseemly, Beckett," he says primly.

On Saturday, he drives her and her new suitcase to Sam Harrison's one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side.

They don't exactly settle into a routine, because there's nothing routine about their lives. But some nights she stays at the loft with him; some night he stays with her; some nights they're on their own.

Beckett, who once reveled in her solitude, more and more finds that she has too much of it. It's November now, and the nights are longer and chillier. She's missing him and she has no compunction now about saying so. She picks up the phone and texts.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Wanna come over?"

"Sure. But I thought this was your solo night."

"Changed my mind. Duet."

"Be there in 25."

He gets there in twenty-two. "A personal best," he says proudly. "I was about to get in a cab by the subway entrance when I heard a train coming into the station so I ran down the stairs and just made it."

"Impressive," she says, giving him a kiss. "I hope you didn't wear yourself out."

"Not a chance." He flops down on the sofa, snagging her wrist on the way so that she lands on his lap. "So, a duet, huh?"

"Uh-huh. I'm feeling quite inspired."

"Really? By what?"

"The opera. I was looking out the window before, because you can see a little bit of the balcony at the opera house from here. I like watching people go out there during intermission."

"So what's on tonight?"

" _Tristan and Isolde_. Wagner." She's leaning her head against his chest. "Very, very, very long. It's like an endurance test for the two lovers."

"This is inspiring you, eh? You gonna sing?"

"Not sure, Castle," she says, pinching him. "But I'm pretty sure you can make me yell as loud as any Wagnerian."

He puts his hands around her waist and stands them both up. "There's a challenge I'm happily accepting. How long is this opera, anyway?"

"Five and a half hours," she purrs.

"Jesus."

And then one Friday night in January he's moping around at home alone when the doorbell rings. Who the hell does that at eleven o'clock? Must be a neighbor, since the doorman didn't ring up. He opens the door. It's Beckett, with her hand-stitched leather suitcase.

"Beckett! This is a surprise."

"Mister Castle?"

"Uh, yes?"

"May I come in?"

"Of course." He waves her in. "May I take your coat? Detective Beckett, is it?"

"Yes, thank you."

It's navy blue wool. He doesn't think that he's seen it before. "May I get you a drink?"

"I don't drink when I'm on duty, Mister Castle." She raises one eyebrow.

"Oh, I see. Well, what can I do for you? May I help you with your suitcase?"

"No, thank you. I'll hold on to it for the moment. I understand that you have an unusual room here. A secret lair, I believe you call it."

"Yes. Yes, I do. Is there a problem?"

"I hope not, Mister Castle. I'll have to ask you to show it to me."

"Certainly. Um, right this way."

They walk into the office, and he's relieved that she can't see his face as he's trying to figure out her game. He activates the door. "Here we are, Detective."

He turns on the lights, and she lifts her suitcase onto the coffee table. "Just as I thought," she says, as she looks around.

"Just as you thought?"

"Yes." She leans over, opens the suitcase and removes a large role of yellow tape. "What is behind the doors of that cabinet, Mister Castle?"

"Oh, that? That's a Murphy bed. It works—"

"I know how it works, Mister Castle. Please open it for me."

"Sure. Of course. Right now." He opens the doors and pushes the button that sends the bed down.

"Stand aside, please."

He does. And then he watches as she attaches the tape to one side of the cabinet, loops it around the bed and finishes by attaching it to the far side of the cabinet. CRIME SCENE. DO NOT CROSS, the tape reads over and over, in large letters.

She puts the roll on one of the shelves and dusts her palms against each other. "There," she says.

"Crime scene, Detective Beckett? This is a crime scene?"

"It certainly is, Mister Castle. I have to ask you to come with me."

"Do I need to call my attorney? Are you charging me with something?"

She picks up her suitcase. "If you'll come with me, please."

"Of course. I always cooperate with the NYPD."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'll follow you out. Please don't try to escape."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Detective."

When they're back in his office, he stops and looks at her. "Over here," she tells him, nodding towards his bedroom door. "Please sit down on the chair."

He does as he's told, and this time she drops her suitcase next to the bed. "Um, Detective? Don't I have the right to know what crime you believe I've committed?"

"You do," she says, and kicks off her shoes. "In that room, that secret lair, you stole my heart."

"I did?"

"You did," she says, as she unzips her pants and steps out of them.

"Are you here to take it back?"

"No, I want you to keep it."

"Am I under arrest?"

She pulls her sweater over her head, lets it fall next to the pants, and shakes out her hair. "Yes, you are. House arrest. Here, with me."

"I see," he says, looking her up and down and taking in the blue silk excuse for underwear that she's wearing. "For how long?"

"Forever. I'm here to stay."

 **A/N** That's it for this story. Thank you all for cheering on something that I thought would be no more than three chapters long.


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